Distributed network control system with one master controller per logical datapath set

• US 9,363,210 B2
• Filed: 08/26/2011
• Issued: 06/07/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lambeth, W. Andrew, Koponen, Teemu, Casado, Martin
• Primary Examiner(s): Hsu, Alpus H
• Application Number:
  US13/219,578
• Publication Number:
  US 20130060819A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,747 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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

A network control system for managing a plurality of managed switching elements that implement a plurality of logical datapath sets. The network control system includes a first controller instance that manages the logical datapath sets by generating, based on logical forwarding plane data, physical control plane data. The network control system also includes a second controller instance that manages the managed switching elements by receiving physical control plane data and sending the physical control plane data to the switching elements.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program, which when executed by at least one processing unit provides a first network controller instance that is part of a network control system comprising a plurality of network controller instances, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

generating, based on logical forwarding plane data that specifies a particular logical data path set in terms of logical forwarding behaviors of the particular logical data path set, output physical control plane data that specifies rules for at least a first managed switching element and a second managed switching element, respectively, to follow in order to implement the particular logical data path set, wherein the first network controller instance is a master controller instance for the particular logical data path set and the first managed switching element; and

sending (i) the output physical control plane data that specifies rules for the first managed switching element to the first managed switching element and (ii) the output physical control plane data that specifies rules for the second managed switching element to a second network controller instance that manages the second managed switching element.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the master controller instance for the particular logical data path set is the only controller instance that generates the output physical control plane data that specifies rules for a group of managed switching elements to follow in order to implement the logical datapath set, the group of managed switching elements comprising the first and second managed switching elements.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the second network controller instance sends the output physical control plane data for the second managed switching element to the second managed switching element.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 3, wherein the master controller instance determines to make a modification after receiving a modification request from a third network controller instance.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 4, wherein the master controller instance receives the modification request as a request that is stored on a request list that is propagated through network information base (NIB) storages of the first and third network controller instances when the NIB storages are replicated across the master controller instance and the third network controller instance.

6. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving logical control plane data that specifies a definition for the particular logical data path set; and

generating at least a portion of the logical forwarding plane data based on the received logical control plane data.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first and second managed switching elements convert the physical control plane data to physical forwarding plane data, said physical forwarding plane data allowing the first and second managed switching elements to forward packets to implement logical forwarding behaviors specified for the particular logical data path set.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first managed switching element implements at least one additional logical data path set in addition to the particular logical data path set.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein a third network controller instance is prevented from generating logical forwarding plane data for the particular logical data path set while the first network controller instance operates as the master controller instance for the particular logical data path set, wherein, upon failure of the first network controller instance, the third network controller instance operates as a new master controller instance of the particular logical data path set.

10. A network control system for managing a plurality of managed switching elements that implement a plurality of logical data path sets, the network control system comprising:

a first controller instance that manages a particular logical data path set of the plurality of logical data path sets and a first managed switching element of the plurality of managed switching elements, wherein the first controller instance is for generating, based on logical forwarding plane data that specifies the particular logical data path set in terms of forwarding behaviors of the particular logical data path set, physical control plane data that specifies rules for the first managed switching element and a second managed switching element, respectively, in order to define forwarding behaviors of the first and second managed switching elements to implement the particular logical data path set; and

a second controller instance that manages the second managed switching element, wherein the second controller instance is for ci) receiving the physical control plane data that specifies rules for the second managed switching element and is generated by the first controller instance and cii) sending the received physical control plane data to the second managed switching element.

11. The network control system of claim 10, wherein the first controller instance is further for receiving logical control plane data that specifies a definition for the particular logical data path set and for generating, based on the received logical control plane data, the logical forwarding plane data for subsequent conversion into physical control plane data.

12. The network control system of claim 11, wherein the logical control plane data for the particular logical data path set is supplied to the first controller instance through a user interface.

13. The network control system of claim 10, wherein the particular logical data path set is a first logical data path set, wherein the second controller instance is further for receiving physical control plane data for a second logical data path set and sending the received physical control plane data for the second logical data path set to the second managed switching element.

14. The network control system of claim 10, wherein the first and second managed switching elements are for receiving the physical control plane data and converting the received physical control plane data to physical forwarding plane data.

15. The network control system of claim 10, wherein the particular logical data path set is a first logical data path set, wherein the first controller instance also manages a second logical data path set.

16. The network control system of claim 10, wherein the second controller instance also manages a third managed switching element.

17. The network control system of claim 16, wherein the particular logical data path set is a first logical data path set, wherein the second controller instance is further for receiving physical control plane data for a second logical data path set from a third controller instance that manages the second logical data path set.