PIPELINE TABLE IDENTIFICATION

• US 20170034058A1
• Filed: 07/18/2014
• Published: 02/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Manjeshwar, Radhika Hegde, Sampath, Rangaprasad
• Granted Patent: US 10,257,091 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/20 Network management software packages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/38 Flow based routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2557 Translation policies or rules
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/324 in the data link layer [OSI layer 2], e.g. HDLC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/325 in the network layer [OSI layer 3], e.g. X.25 H04L69/16 takes precedence

Abstract

A match field and an action for a flow rule may be received from a software defined networking application. A mapping of table identifications to attributes may be analyzed to obtain a table identification. The table identification may be for a pipeline table of a network device. The pipeline table may be able to implement the match field and the action.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a match field and an action for a flow rule from a software defined networking (SDN) application; and

analyzing a mapping of table identifications (IDs) to attributes to obtain a table ID for a pipeline table of a network device to implement the match field and the action.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the mapping to obtain the table ID such that the pipeline table corresponds to a priority value associated with the SDN application.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the table ID to the SDN application

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating an attribute digest for the network device;

providing the attribute digest to the SDN application; and

receiving the match field and the action in a subscription to the attribute digest.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a flow operational parameter for the flow rule from the SDN application; and

analyzing the mapping to obtain the table ID such that the pipeline table supports the flow operation parameter.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the flow operational parameter is a flow scale or performance requirement.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the match field and the action in a first flow rule, the first flow rule lacking the table ID, and

providing the table ID to a flow manager in a second flow rule.

8. A controller, comprising:

a pipeline abstractor to;

obtain a plurality of table identifications (IDs) and corresponding table attributes from a network device; and

use the table attributes to generate a digest of network device capabilities

a pipeline provider to;

obtain a subscription to the digest from a software defined networking (SDN) application; and

provide a table ID of the plurality of table IDs satisfying the subscription.

9. The controller of claim 8, wherein the pipeline provider is to provide multiple table IDs satisfying the subscription to the SDN application.

10. The controller of claim 8, wherein the subscription includes a match field and a flow requirement.

11. The controller of claim 10, wherein the pipeline provider is to use the flow requirement to determine whether to satisfy the subscription using a hardware table or a software table.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions executable by a processor to:

obtain a set of flow rule attributes;

obtain a plurality of table identifications (IDs) and a corresponding set of table capabilities of a pipeline of a network device;

provide a table ID for a table of the pipeline supporting the set of flow rule attributes.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, storing instructions executable by the processor to receive the set of flow rule attributes as a subscription to a digest.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 13, storing instructions executable by the processor to provide the table ID by selecting a hardware table ID or a software table ID based on the subscription.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, storing instructions executable by the processor to:

receive the set of flow rule attributes as a first version of a flow rule, the first version of the flow rule lacking a valid table ID; and

provide a second version of the flow rule, the second version of the flow rule including the table ID.