SWITCH MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20120072568A1
• Filed: 11/28/2011
• Published: 03/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Fortinet Inc.
• Inventors: Matthews, Abraham R., Berenberg, Anna
• Granted Patent: US 8,255,510 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• 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

Methods and systems for managing a service provider switch are provided. According to one embodiment, a network operating system (NOS) is provided on each processor element (PE) of the switch. The NOS includes an object manager (OM) responsible for managing global software object groups, managing software object configurations, managing local software objects and groups and routing control information between address spaces based on locations of software objects. The OM performs management plane communications among software objects by way of system calls. The OM performs data plane communications among software objects by way of object-to-object channels. The switch is provisioned with a network-based managed IP service for a particular customer of the service provider by pushing the service onto an object-to-object channel that has been established between a first software object and a second software object of the software objects.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing a network operating system (NOS) on each processor element (PE) of a plurality of PEs of a switch in which software objects represent a basic unit of management, the NOS including an object manager (OM) responsible for managing global software object groups, managing software object configurations, managing local software objects and groups and routing control information between address spaces based on locations of software objects;

performing, by the OM, management plane communications among a plurality of software objects by way of system calls;

performing, by the OM, data plane communications among the plurality of software objects by way of object-to-object channels; and

provisioning the switch with a network-based managed Internet Protocol (IP) service for a particular customer of a plurality of customers of a service provider by pushing the network-based managed IP service onto an object-to-object channel that has been established between a first software object and a second software object of the plurality of software objects.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the system calls comprise input/output control (IOCTL) system calls.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the network-based managed IP service comprises a managed security service.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the managed security service comprises a managed firewall service.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the managed security service comprises a managed virtual private network (VPN).

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

establishing the object-to-object channel between the first software object and the second software object by

allocating within the first software object a first connection end point (CEP) associated with the object-to-object channel;

allocating within the second software object a second CEP associated with the object-to-object channel; and

forming a connection between the first CEP and the second CEP.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first software object and the second software object have a common address space.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first software object and the second software object are located in different address spaces.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisioning is responsive to one or more commands received from a service management system associated with the service provider.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisioning is responsive to one or more commands received from a customer network management tool associated with the particular customer.

11. A switch comprising:

a plurality of processor elements upon which a network operating system (NOS), in which software objects represent a basic unit of management, is executing;

wherein the NOS includes an object manager (OM) responsible for managing global software object groups, managing software object configurations, managing local software objects and groups and routing control information between address spaces based on locations of software objects;

wherein the OM performs management plane communications among a plurality of software objects by way of system calls;

wherein the OM performs data plane communications among the plurality of software objects by way of object-to-object channels; and

wherein the switch is provisioned with a network-based managed Internet Protocol (IP) service for a particular customer of a plurality of customers of a service provider by pushing the network-based managed IP service onto an object-to-object channel that has been established between a first software object and a second software object of the plurality of software objects.

12. The switch of claim 11, wherein the system calls comprise input/output control (IOCTL) system calls.

13. The switch of claim 11, wherein the network-based managed IP service comprises a managed security service.

14. The switch of claim 13, wherein the managed security service comprises a managed firewall service.

15. The switch of claim 13, wherein the managed security service comprises a managed virtual private network (VPN).

16. The switch of claim 11, wherein the first software object and the second software object have a common address space.

17. The switch of claim 11, wherein the first software object and the second software object are located in different address spaces.

18. The switch of claim 11, wherein the provisioning is responsive to one or more commands received from a service management system associated with the service provider.

19. The switch of claim 11, wherein the provisioning is responsive to one or more commands received from a customer network management tool associated with the particular customer.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of a switch tangibly embodying a set of instructions representing a network operating system (NOS) for a plurality of processor elements (PEs) of the switch in which software objects represent a basic unit of management and which when executed by the plurality of PEs cause the PEs to perform a method comprising:

instantiating an object manager (OM) responsible for managing global software object groups, managing software object configurations, managing local software objects and groups and routing control information between address spaces based on locations of software objects;

performing, by the OM, management plane communications among a plurality of software objects by way of system calls;

performing, by the OM, data plane communications among the plurality of software objects by way of object-to-object channels; and

provisioning the switch with a network-based managed Internet Protocol (IP) service for a particular customer of a plurality of customers of a service provider by pushing the network-based managed IP service onto an object-to-object channel that has been established between a first software object and a second software object of the plurality of software objects.