Connecting unmanaged segmented networks by managing interconnection switching elements

• US 9,288,081 B2
• Filed: 08/17/2012
• Issued: 03/15/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Casado, Martin, Koponen, Teemu, Thakkar, Pankaj
• Primary Examiner(s): Nawaz, Asad
• Assistant Examiner(s): Harley, Jason
• Application Number:
  US13/589,040
• Publication Number:
  US 20130044762A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,306 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/044 comprising hierarchical management structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/122 of virtualised topologies, e.g. software-defined networks [SDN] or network function virtualisation [NFV]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/04 Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a novel network control system for interconnecting several separate networks. The system includes a set of interconnection switching elements. Each interconnection switching element in the set is for connecting one of the separate networks to a common interconnecting network. The system includes a set of network controllers for managing the interconnection switching elements in order for the interconnection switching elements to send packets from a first machine at a first one of the networks to a second machine at a second one of the networks.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one processing unit implements a network controller for managing a plurality of interconnection switching elements in a network, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a definition of a logical switching element that connects a set of network segments located at different segmented networks, the definition binding each logical port of the logical switching element to a different network segment, wherein each different network segment comprises a separate plurality of machines having unique destination addresses; and

configuring a set of interconnection switching elements located at each of the different segmented networks to implement the logical switching element by distributing forwarding instructions to the interconnection switching elements, each of the interconnection switching elements connecting a different one of the network segments to a same interconnecting network to which each of the interconnection switching elements connects, wherein the forwarding instructions specify to forward packets having any of the destination addresses of the machines for a particular network segment through the interconnecting network to the interconnection switching element that connects the particular network segment to the interconnecting network.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions for receiving the definition of the logical switching element comprises a set of instructions for receiving the plurality of unique destination addresses attached to each network segment in the set of network segments.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein each of the segmented networks is a segmented L2 network and the common interconnecting network is a L3 network.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein a first interconnection switching element that connects a first one of the segmented networks to the interconnecting network removes segmentation information of a packet received from the first segmented network to identify a first network segment of a source machine of the packet, maps the identified network segment to the logical switching element, and encapsulates the packet with an identifier for a logical egress port of the logical switching element that corresponds to a second network segment of a second segmented network.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 4, wherein the definition of the logical switching element comprises a description of network segmentation techniques for each of the segmented networks.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 4, wherein a second interconnection switching element that connects the second network segment to the interconnecting network receives the encapsulated packet from the first interconnection switching element, removes the encapsulation from the packet in order to identify that the packet destination is a machine on the second segmented network, adds segmentation information for the second segmented network to the packet.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the interconnection switching elements are extenders.

8. A network control system for interconnecting a plurality of separate networks, the system comprising:

a plurality of network segments comprising at least (i) a first network segment of a first network segmented using a first technique and (ii) a second network segment of a second network segmented using a second technique, each network segment of the plurality of network segments comprising a plurality of machines;

a set of interconnection switching elements, each interconnection switching element having a first physical port that interfaces with a particular one of the network segments and a second physical port that interfaces with an interconnecting network to which all of the interconnection switching elements connect to provide connections between the plurality of network segments; and

a network controller for managing the set of interconnection switching elements by defining a logical switching element comprising logical ports to which each of the network segments couple, wherein the logical switching element is for implementation by each of the interconnection switching elements of the set of interconnection switching elements, with each logical port corresponding to one of the interconnection switching elements, wherein the plurality of machines of each network segment are mapped to the logical port for the network segment by the interconnection switching elements.

9. The network control system of claim 8, wherein the first network segment is segmented using virtual local area network (VLAN) tagging and the second network segment is segmented using multi-protocol labeling system (MPLS) labeling.

10. The network control system of claim 8, wherein the first network segment is segmented using a first VLAN technique and the second network segment is segmented using a second VLAN technique.

11. The network control system of claim 8, wherein each interconnection switching element that has a first physical port interfacing with a particular network segment stores instructions for decoding and removing network segmentation information from packets received from the particular network segment.

12. The network control system of claim 8, wherein each interconnection switching element that has a first physical port interfacing with a particular network segment stores instructions for adding network segmentation information to packets received from other interconnection switching elements and directed towards machines of the particular network segment.

13. The network control system of claim 8, wherein the first network segment is located at a first datacenter and the second network segment is located at a second, different datacenter.

14. The network control system of claim 8, wherein the logical switching element comprises a first logical port coupled to the first network segment and a second logical port coupled to the second network segment.

15. The network control system of claim 14, wherein the plurality of network segments comprises a third network segment of a third network segmented using a third technique, wherein the logical switching element comprises a third logical port coupled to the third network segment.

16. For a network controller, a method for managing a plurality of interconnection switching elements in a network, the method comprising:

receiving a definition of a logical switching element that connects a set of network segments located at different segmented networks, the definition binding each logical port of the logical switching element to a different network segment, wherein each different network segment comprises a separate plurality of machines having unique destination addresses; and

configuring a set of interconnection switching elements located at each of the different segmented networks to implement the logical switching element by distributing forwarding instructions to the interconnection switching elements, each of the interconnection switching elements connecting a different one of the network segments to a same interconnecting network to which each of the interconnection switching elements connects, wherein the forwarding instructions specify to forward packets having any of the destination addresses of the machines for a particular network segment through the interconnecting network to the interconnection switching element that connects the particular network segment to the interconnecting network.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein receiving the definition of the logical switching element comprises receiving the plurality of unique destination addresses attached to each network segment in the set of network segments.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the definition of the logical switching element comprises logical control plane data, wherein configuring the set of interconnection switching elements comprises:

converting the logical control plane data to logical forwarding plane data;

converting the logical forwarding plane data to physical control plane data; and

pushing the physical control plane data to the interconnection switching elements.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the definition of the logical switching element comprises a description of network segmentation techniques for each of the segmented networks.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the physical control plane data comprises flow entries that enable the interconnection switching elements to implement the logical switching element for packets received from and sent to machines in the different network segments.