Physical controllers for converting universal flows

• US 9,137,107 B2
• Filed: 10/25/2012
• Issued: 09/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Koponen, Teemu, Thakkar, Pankaj, Gude, Natasha, Lambeth, W. Andrew, Padmanabhan, Amar, Shieh, Alan, Stribling, Jeremy, Yip, Alexander, Zhang, Ronghua, Casado, Martin
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim, Hee Soo
• Application Number:
  US13/660,999
• Publication Number:
  US 20130117428A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,055 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 41/042 comprising distributed management centres cooperatively managing the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0813 characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/34 Signalling channels for network management communication

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a network control system for generating physical control plane data for managing first and second managed forwarding elements that implement forwarding operations associated with a first logical datapath set. The system includes a first controller instance for converting logical control plane data for the first logical datapath set to universal physical control plane (UPCP) data. The system includes a second controller instance for converting UPCP data to customized physical control plane (CPCP) data for the first managed forwarding element but not the second managed forwarding element. Each controller instance includes a network information base (NIB) storage for storing data and exchanging data with the other controller instance.

Claims

1. A network control system for generating physical control plane data for managing a set of managed forwarding elements that implement forwarding operations associated with a first logical datapath set, the system comprising:

a first controller computer comprising a first network information base (NIB) storage, the first controller computer for (i) receiving logical control plane data that define the logical datapath set, (ii) converting the logical control plane data to universal physical control plane (UPCP) data that define a first set of forwarding behaviors that is common between every managed forwarding element in the set of managed forwarding elements, and (iii) storing the UPCP data in the first NIB storage; and

a second controller computer comprising a second NIB storage, the second controller computer for (i) receiving the UPCP data from the first NIB storage, (ii) converting the UPCP data to customized physical control plane (CPCP) data that define a second set of forwarding behaviors for a particular managed forwarding element in the set of managed forwarding elements, and (iii) storing the CPCP data in the second NIB storage.

2. The network control system of claim 1, wherein the particular managed forwarding element is a first managed forwarding element, the system further comprising a third controller computer comprising a third NIB storage, the third controller computer for (i) receiving the UPCP data from the first NIB storage, (ii) converting the UPCP data to CPCP data that define a third set of forwarding behaviors for a second managed forwarding element, and (iii) storing the CPCP data in the third NIB storage.

3. The network control system of claim 2, wherein the second and third controllers exchange data with one another in order to replicate data records stored in the second and third NIB storages.

4. The network control system of claim 3, wherein each of the second and third controller computers further comprises a secondary data storage, wherein the NIB storages of the second and third controller computers exchange data through the secondary data storages.

5. The network control system of claim 2,

wherein the first controller computer is a master controller computer for the logical datapath set,

wherein the second controller computer is a master controller computer for the first managed forwarding element, and

wherein the third controller computer is a master controller computer for the second managed forwarding element.

6. The network control system of claim 5 further comprising a coordination manager for identifying different controller instances computers as masters of different logical datapath sets and different managed forwarding elements.

7. The network control system of claim 2, wherein each of the second and third controller computers further comprises

a secondary data storage that stores records of the second and third NIB storages, wherein each secondary storage is for maintaining a state of a global NIB storage.

8. The network control system of claim 7, wherein each of the

second and third NIB storages comprises a storage structure that is stored in a volatile memory while each secondary storage comprises a storage structure that is stored in a non-volatile memory in order to improve a resiliency of the network control system.

9. The network control system of claim 2, wherein the first managed forwarding element executes on a first host machine while the second managed forwarding element executes on a second different host machine, wherein the second controller computer is a computer separate from the first and second host machines.

10. The network control system of claim 1, the first controller computer further comprising a NIB monitor for receiving a notification of a change in a state of the set of managed forwarding elements and modifying the data records of the first NIB storage accordingly.

11. The network control system of claim 1, wherein the logical datapath set is a first logical datapath set and the set of managed forwarding elements is a first set of managed forwarding elements, the system further comprising a third controller computer comprising a third NIB storage, the third controller computer for (i) receiving logical control plane data that define a second logical datapath set, (ii) converting the logical control plane data that define the second logical datapath set to UPCP data that define a third set of forwarding behaviors that is common between every managed forwarding element in the second set of managed forwarding elements, and (iii) storing the UPCP data that define the third set of forwarding behaviors in the third NIB storage.

12. The network control system of claim 11, wherein the particular managed forwarding element is a first managed forwarding element, wherein the second controller computer is further for (i) receiving the UPCP for the second logical datapath set from the third NIB storage, and (ii) converting the UPCP data for the second logical datapath set to CPCP data for a second managed forwarding element.

13. The network control system of claim 1, wherein the first controller computer converts the received logical control plane data to the UPCP data by mapping the logical control plane data to a set of data records of the first NIB storage that relates to a state of the set of managed forwarding elements.

14. The network control system of claim 1, wherein the second controller computer converts the received UPCP data to the CPCP data by mapping the UPCP data to a set of data records of the second NIB storage that relates to the particular managed forwarding element.

15. The network control system of claim 1, wherein receiving the UPCP data from the first NIB storage by the second controller computer comprises the first NIB storage propagating the UPCP data to the second NIB storage of the second controller computer.

16. The network control system of claim 15, wherein each of the first and second controller computers further comprises a secondary data storage, wherein the first NIB storage of the first controller computer propagates the UPCP data to the second NIB storage of the second controller computer through the secondary data storages of the first and second controller computers.

17. A first controller computer for a network control system that manages a set of managed forwarding elements that implement forwarding operations associated with a logical datapath set comprising a set of logical forwarding elements, the first controller computer comprising:

an inter-controller communication interface for receiving universal physical control plane (UPCP) data from a second controller computer that generates the UPCP data from logical control plane data for the set of logical forwarding elements, wherein the received UPCP data comprises data that define a first set of forwarding behaviors that is common between every managed forwarding element in the set of managed forwarding elements;

a conversion module for converting the UPCP data to customized physical control plane (CPCP) data that define a second set of forwarding behaviors for a particular managed forwarding element in the set of managed forwarding elements, wherein the particular managed forwarding element operates on a host machine separate from the first and second controller computers;

a network information base (NIB) storage for storing the CPCP data for the particular managed forwarding element after the conversion; and

a communication interface for (i) retrieving the CPCP data for the particular managed forwarding element from the NIB storage, and (ii) transmitting the CPCP data to the particular managed forwarding element in the host machine.

18. The first controller computer of claim 17, wherein the particular managed forwarding element is a first managed forwarding element, and the host machine is a first host machine,

wherein the conversion module is further for converting the UPCP data to CPCP data that define a third set of forwarding behaviors for a second managed forwarding element that operates on a second different host machine;

wherein the NIB storage is further for storing the CPCP data for the second managed forwarding element; and

wherein the communication interface is further for (i) retrieving the CPCP data for the second managed forwarding element from the NIB storage, and (ii) transmitting the CPCP data to the second managed forwarding element in the second host machine.

19. The first controller computer of claim 18, wherein the second controller computer is a master controller of the set of logical forwarding elements and the first controller computer is a master controller of the first and second managed forwarding elements.

20. The first controller computer of claim 19 further comprising a coordination manager that interacts with coordination managers of other controller computers to identify different controller computers as masters of different managed forwarding elements.

21. The first controller computer of claim 17, wherein the second controller computer receives the logical control plane data for the set of logical forwarding elements from a user through a set of Application Programming Interface (API) calls.

22. The first controller computer of claim 17, wherein the logical datapath set is a first logical datapath set and the set of logical forwarding elements is a first set of logical forwarding elements, wherein the inter-controller communication interface is further for receiving UPCP data from a third controller computer that generates the UPCP data from logical control plane data for a second logical datapath set comprising a second set of logical forwarding elements.

23. The first controller computer of claim 22, wherein the particular managed forwarding element is a first managed forwarding element, wherein the host machine is a first host machine,

wherein the conversion module is further for converting the UPCP data received from the third controller computer to CPCP data that define a third set of forwarding behaviors for a second managed forwarding element that operates on a second different host machine,

wherein the NIB storage is further for storing the CPCP data for the second managed forwarding element.

24. The first controller computer of claim 17 further comprising:

a NIB monitor for receiving a notification of a change in a state of the particular managed forwarding element and modifying the data records of the NIB storage accordingly.

25. The first controller computer of claim 17 further comprising:

a secondary storage for maintaining a global NIB storage comprising data that are stored in the NIB storage of the first controller computer as well as NIB storages of other controller computers.

26. A non-transitory machine readable medium of a first controller computer of a network control system for managing a set of managed forwarding elements that implement forwarding operations associated with a logical datapath set, the non-transitory machine readable medium storing sets of instructions for:

receiving universal physical control plane (UPCP) data from a second controller computer that generated the UPCP data from logical control plane data, wherein the received UPCP data comprise data that define a first set of forwarding behaviors that is common between every managed forwarding element in the set of managed forwarding elements;

converting the received UPCP data to customized physical control plane (CPCP) data that define a second set of forwarding behaviors for a particular managed forwarding element in the set of managed forwarding elements;

storing the CPCP data in a network information base (NIB) storage; and

transmitting the CPCP data from the NIB storage to the first particular managed forwarding element.

27. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 26, wherein the second controller computer receives the logical control plane data from a user through a set of Application Programming in Interface (API) calls.

28. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 26 further storing a set of instructions for receiving a notification of a change in a state of the particular managed forwarding element and modifying the data records of the NIB storage accordingly.

29. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 26, wherein the logical datapath set is a first logical datapath set, the non-transitory machine readable medium further storing a set of instructions for receiving UPCP data from a third controller computer that generated the UPCP data from logical control plane data for a second logical datapath set.