SWITCH MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20070083528A1
• Filed: 11/06/2006
• Published: 04/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Inventors: Berenberg, Anna, Matthews, Abraham
• Granted Patent: US 8,069,233 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/085 Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0869 Validating the configuration within one network element
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/10 Routing in connection-oriented networks, e.g. X.25 or ATM

Abstract

A system and method of managing a switch includes installing a switch having a plurality of processor elements, installing an operating system on each processor element, creating a system virtual router and configuring the processor elements from the system virtual router.

Claims

1. A switch management system, comprising:

an object manager;

a distributed management layer, wherein the object manager communicates with objects through the distributed management layer, the object manager operable to configure the objects into virtual private networks and virtual routers by creating and deleting objects.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the object manager includes:

an object manager controller in communication with a configuration manager, the object manager controller to manage configurations of virtual routers and virtual private networks;

a global object manager to manage global objects; and

a local object manager to manage local objects, to route control information between address spaces based on locations of the local objects and to communicate with the local objects.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the local object manager includes a state machine for each local object, the local object manager to communicate a state change to a local object to initiate an action associated with the state change.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the distributed management layer includes a distributed message layer, the distributed message layer including channels for data and control messages.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the distributed message layer includes a predefined channel for communications between the global object manager and the local object manager.

6. A switch management system, comprising:

an object manager;

a distributed management layer, wherein the object manager communicates with objects through the distributed management layer; and

system blades including at least one control blade, wherein the objects are located on blades.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the at least one control blade includes a plurality of control blades including a master control blade, the master control blade including management information, and at least one standby control blade, the at least one standby control blade including a replica of the management information.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the type of blades are selected from a set including control blades, access blades, trunk blades and processor blades.

9. A method comprising:

providing a network operating system (NOS) on each processor element (PE) of a plurality of PEs of a switch, the NOS including an object manager (OM) having three layers, an OM controller and database (OMCD) layer responsible for managing virtual private network (VPN) and virtual router (VR) configuration, an OM object routing and interface global (OMORIG) layer, running on a master control blade of a plurality of blades of the switch, responsible for managing global object groups and object configurations, and an OM object routing and interface (OMORI) layer, an instance of which executes on each blade of the plurality of blades of the switch, responsible for managing local objects and groups on the blade as well as routing control information between address spaces based on locations of objects and interfacing with the objects via method invocation;

responsive to receiving a request to create a VR for a VPN on a control blade of the plurality of blades, the OMCD layer creating a unique VR descriptor for the VR within the context of the VPN and adding the VR to a list of VRs associated with the VPN;

the OMCD layer requesting the OMORIG layer to create a corresponding object group to encompass a plurality of objects which comprise the VR and which are located in different address spaces;

the OMORIG layer creating the corresponding object group, identifying a plurality of OMORI layers running in the different address spaces that are capable of supporting the plurality of objects, and requesting the capable OMORI layers to create the plurality of objects; and

the capable OMORI layers creating object descriptors for the plurality of objects, calling appropriate class constructors to create and initialize the plurality of objects, and causing the plurality of objects to be activated.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

responsive to receiving a request to delete the VR, the OMCD layer looking up the VR descriptor and requesting the OMORIG layer to delete the corresponding object group;

the OMORIG layer filtering the capable OMORI layers that have objects to be destroyed and requesting the capable OMORI layers to destroy the plurality of objects of the corresponding object group; and

the capable OMORI layers causing the plurality of objects to stop operating, causing all connections between the plurality of objects and other objects to be destroyed, and causing data structures associated with the plurality of objects to be deallocated.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the OMORIG layer and the OMORI layers communicate via a predefined channel of a dynamic messaging layer (DML) of the NOS.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the switch provides a customer of a plurality of customers of a service provider operating the switch with discrete customized services by providing the customer with the ability to configure the plurality of objects.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the plurality of objects represents network resources of the switch sufficient to provide the customer with network-based managed firewall services.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the plurality of objects represents network-based managed Internet Protocol (IP) services configured for the customer.

15. A network operating system (NOS) for a processor element of a switch, the NOS comprising:

an object manager (OM) including an OM controller and database (OMCD) layer, an OM object routing and interface global (OMORIG) layer and an OM object routing and interface (OMORI) layer, the OMCD layer responsible for managing virtual private network (VPN) and virtual router (VR) configuration, the OMORIG layer, configured to run on a master control blade of a plurality of blades of the switch and responsible for managing global object groups and object configurations, the OMORI layer, an instance of which is configured to execute on each blade of the plurality of blades of the switch, responsible for managing local objects and groups on the blade as well as routing control information between address spaces based on locations of objects and interfacing with the objects via method invocation; and

a distributed message layer (DML) through which the OMORIG layer and OMORI layer communicate via a predefined channel.