Network Testing

• US 20140337674A1
• Filed: 05/06/2014
• Published: 11/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: NEC Laboratories America Inc (NEC Corporation)
• Original Assignee: NEC Laboratories America Inc (NEC Corporation)
• Inventors: Ivancic, Franjo, Lumezanu, Cristian, Balakrishnan, Gogul, Gupta, Aarti, Dennis, Willard
• Application Number:
  US14/270,445
• Publication Number:
  US 20140337674A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/43
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/04 Network management architectures or arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/342 between virtual entities, e.g. orchestrators, SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/344 Out-of-band transfers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/20 the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

A network testing method implemented in a software-defined network (SDN) is disclosed. The network testing method comprising providing a test scenario including one or more network events, injecting said one or more network events to the SDN using an SDN controller, and gathering network traffic statistics. A network testing apparatus used in a software-defined network (SDN) also is disclosed. The network testing apparatus comprising a testing system to provide a test scenario including one or more network events, to inject said one or more network events to the SDN using an SDN controller, and to gather network traffic statistics. Other methods, apparatuses, and systems also are disclosed.

Claims

1. A network testing method implemented in a software-defined network (SDN), the network testing method comprising:

providing a test scenario including one or more network events;

injecting said one or more network events to the SDN using an SDN controller; and

gathering network traffic statistics.

2. The network testing method as in claim 1, wherein said one or more network events include a network connection loss, network connection degradation, dropping a packet, or delaying a packet.

3. The network testing method as in claim 1, wherein the injection is carried out dynamically.

4. The network testing method as in claim 1, wherein the network traffic statistics comprises how often an application tries to connect to a certain port on a destination host.

5. The network testing method as in claim 1, wherein the SDN network comprises an OpenFlow network and the SDN controller comprises an OpenFlow controller.

6. The network testing method as in claim 1, wherein the injection is carried out through OpenFlow application programming interface (API).

7. The network testing method as in claim 5, wherein injection is carried out using OpenFlow controller FloodLight comprising a static flow pusher module.

8. The network testing method as in claim 5, wherein the OpenFlow controller comprises a flow delay module, and said one or more network events include delaying a packet using the flow delay module.

9. The network testing method as in claim 8,

wherein the flow delay module accepts a configuration file that contains information about an application to be tested, and

wherein the information includes at least one of a media access control (MAC) address of a participating host or virtual machine (VM) and a port number, and information is used to generate a rule update.

10. The testing method as in claim 8, further comprising:

configuring the flow delay module by specifying a range of a delay to be applied to a matching packet;

checking whether a packet is part of a flow under test; and

if the packet is part of the flow under test, randomly choosing a delay from within the range.

11. A network testing apparatus used in a software-defined network (SDN), the network testing apparatus comprising:

a testing system to provide a test scenario including one or more network events, to inject said one or more network events to the SDN using an SDN controller, and to gather network traffic statistics.

12. The network testing apparatus as in claim 11, wherein said one or more network events include a network connection loss, network connection degradation, dropping a packet, or delaying a packet.

13. The network testing apparatus as in claim 11, wherein the injection is carried out dynamically.

14. The network testing apparatus as in claim 11, wherein the network traffic statistics comprises how often an application tries to connect to a certain port on a destination host.

15. The network testing apparatus as in claim 11, wherein the SDN network comprises an OpenFlow network and the SDN controller comprises an OpenFlow controller.