Distributed network control apparatus and method

• US 8,837,493 B2
• Filed: 07/06/2011
• Issued: 09/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Casado, Martin, Koponen, Teemu, Lambeth, W. Andrew, Thakkar, Pankaj
• Primary Examiner(s): HSU, ALPUS
• Application Number:
  US13/177,534
• Publication Number:
  US 20130058225A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,168 Days
• Field of Search: 370/395.53, 370/397, 370/400, 370/409, 370/428, 370/465, 709/208, 709/223
• US Class Current: 370/395.53
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/07 Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/17312 Routing techniques specific to parallel machines, e.g. wormhole, store and forward, shortest path problem congestion routing on a LAN H04L45/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• 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 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/122 of virtualised topologies, e.g. software-defined networks [SDN] or network function virtualisation [NFV]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/036 Updating the topology between route computation elements, e.g. between OpenFlow controllers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/586 of virtual routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/76 Routing in software-defined topologies, e.g. routing between virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/783 Distributed allocation of resources, e.g. bandwidth brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/00 Packet switching elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/1546 using pipelined operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/3063 Pipelined operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 : Virtual switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 : Internet protocol [IP] addresses

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a distributed control system for controlling managed switching elements of a network. The distributed control system comprises a first controller for converting a first set of input logical control plane data to a first set of output logical forwarding plane data. It also includes a second controller for converting a second set of input logical control plane data to a second set of output logical forwarding plane data. The logical forwarding plane data is translated into physical forwarding behaviors that direct the forwarding of data by the managed switching elements.

Claims

1. A distributed network control system for controlling a plurality of managed switching elements that forward data in a network, the distributed network control system comprising:

a first controller executing a first control application, the first control application for receiving a first set of input logical control plane data that specifies a first set of logical data path (LDP) sets and converting the first set of input logical control plane data into a first set of output logical forwarding plane data that defines the first set of LDP sets in terms of a first set of logical forwarding rules, the first set of output logical forwarding plane data for translation into a first set of physical forwarding rules that directs the forwarding for a first set of managed switching elements of the plurality of managed switching elements; and

a second controller executing a second control application, the second control application for receiving a second set of input logical control plane data that specifies a second set of LDP sets and converting the second set of input logical control plane data into a second set of output logical forwarding plane data that defines the second set of LDP sets in terms of a second set of logical forwarding rules, the second set of output logical forwarding plane data for translation into a second set of physical forwarding rules that directs the forwarding for a second set of managed switching elements of the plurality of managed switching elements.

2. The distributed network control system of claim 1, wherein the first set of LDP sets differs from the second set of LDP sets.

3. The distributed network control system of claim 1, wherein the first control application comprises:

an interface for receiving the first set of input logical control plane data as a part of a third set of input logical control plane data;

a filter for filtering out, from the third set of input logical control plane data, input logical control plane data that is not a part of the first set of input logical control plane data; and

a converter for converting the first set of input logical control plane data that is not filtered out by the filter into the first set of output logical forwarding plane data.

4. The distributed network control system of claim 3, wherein the interface is a first interface, the filter is a first filter, and the converter is a first converter, wherein the second control application comprises:

a second interface for receiving the second set of input logical control plane data as a part of a fourth set of input logical control plane data;

a second filter for filtering out, from the fourth set of input logical control plane data, input logical control plane data that is not a part of the second set of input logical control plane data; and

a second converter for converting the second set of input logical control plane data that is not filtered out by the second filter into the second set of output logical forwarding plane data.

5. The distributed network control system of claim 4, wherein the first and second control applications further respectively comprise first and second monitors, the first and second monitors for (i) detecting changes to the managed switching elements, and (ii) based on the changes, supplying input logical control plane data to respectively the first and second interfaces of the first and second control applications.

6. The distributed network control system of claim 5, wherein the first controller comprises a data storage structure that stores managed switching element data regarding the managed switching elements, wherein the first monitor detects changes to the managed switching elements by monitoring the data storage structure.

7. The distributed network control system of claim 3,

wherein the first controller is a master controller of the first set of LDP sets, while the second controller is a master controller of the second set of LDP sets that differs from the first set of LDP sets.

8. The distributed network control system of claim 3,

wherein the interface comprises a first set of tables for storing the first set of input logical control plane data;

wherein the first controller further comprises a second set of tables for storing the first set of output logical forwarding plane data; and

wherein the converter comprises a table mapping engine that maps records in the first set of tables to records in the second set of tables to convert the first set of input logical control plane data stored in the first set of tables into the first set of output logical forwarding plane data stored in the second set of tables.

9. The distributed network control system of claim 1, wherein the received first and second sets of input logical control plane data are at least partially supplied by users.

10. The distributed network control system of claim 1, wherein each controller is a computer.

11. A distributed network control system for controlling a plurality of managed switching elements that forward data in a network, the distributed network control system comprising:

a plurality of network controllers, each network controller executing a control application, a particular control application executed by a particular one of the plurality of network controllers comprising;

an interface for receiving a set of input logical control plane data that specifies a set of logical data path (LDP) sets;

a filter for filtering out, from the set of input logical control plane data, a first subset of input logical control plane data of the set of input logical control plane data that specifies a first subset of LDP sets of the set of LDP sets, wherein (i) LDP sets of the first subset of LDP sets are not managed by the particular control application, (ii) the input logical control plane data that is not filtered out is a second subset of input logical control plane data that specifies a second subset of LDP sets of the set of LDP sets, and (iii) LDP sets of the second subset of LDP sets are managed by the particular control application; and

a converter for converting the second subset of input logical control plane data that is not filtered out by the filter into a set of output logical forwarding plane data that defines the second subset of LDP sets in terms of a set of logical forwarding rules, wherein the set of output logical forwarding plane data is for translation into a set of physical forwarding rules that directs the forwarding of a set of managed switching elements of the plurality of managed switching elements.

12. The distributed network control system of claim 11,

wherein a first the particular network controller of the plurality of network controllers is a master controller of the second subset of LDP sets;

wherein the filter of the particular control application executing on the particular network controller filters out input logical control plane data from the set of input logical control plane data when the input logical control plane data does not relate to the second subset of LDP sets.

13. The distributed network control system of claim 11,

wherein the interface of the particular control application comprises a first set of tables for storing the set of input logical control plane data;

wherein the particular controller comprises a second set of tables for storing the set of output logical forwarding plane data; and

wherein the converter of the particular control application comprises a table mapping engine that maps records in the first set of tables of the particular controller to records in the second set of tables of the particular controller to convert the set of input logical control plane data stored in the first set of tables into the set of output logical forwarding plane data stored in the second set of tables.

14. The distributed network control system of claim 11, wherein the set of input logical control plane data is at least partially supplied by users.

15. The distributed network control system of claim 11, wherein the particular control application further comprises a monitor for (i) detecting changes in the set of managed switching elements, and (ii) supplying the interface of the particular control application with input logical control plane data based on the changes.

16. The distributed network control system of claim 15, wherein the particular controller comprises a data storage structure that stores managed switching element data regarding the set of managed switching elements, wherein the monitor detects changes to the managed switching elements of the set of managed switching elements by monitoring the data storage structure.

17. The distributed network control system of claim 11, wherein said translation of the set of output logical forwarding plane data comprises (i) translation of the set of output logical forwarding plane data to a set of physical control plane data, and (ii) translation of the set of physical control plane data to a set of physical forwarding plane data that includes the set of physical forwarding rules.

18. The distributed network control system of claim 17, wherein the particular controller further executes a virtualization application that performs the translation of said logical forwarding plane data to the physical control plane data, and the set of managed switching elements perform the translation of the physical control plane data to the physical forwarding plane data.

19. The distributed network control system of claim 11, wherein the set of output logical forwarding plane data comprises logical flow entries in at least one logical forwarding table that is not accessible for input by a source of input of the set of input logical control plane data.

20. The distributed network control system of claim 19, wherein at least a plurality of the logical flow entries specifies layer 2 (L2) or layer 3 (L3) forwarding rules for forwarding of data between logical media access control (MAC) or Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of logical managed switching elements.