SUPPORTING PROGRAMMABILITY FOR ARBITRARY EVENTS IN A SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING ENVIRONMNET

• US 20140280893A1
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: MCDOWALL, John E., PFEIFER, Jason, PRUSS, Richard M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,397,073 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/14 using software, i.e. software packages network security related monitoring H04L63/1408
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for using arbitrary criteria to define events occurring within a network infrastructure, as well and techniques for detecting and responding to the occurrence of such custom events. Doing so allows a collection of networking elements (switches, routers, etc.) to perform a variety of distributed functions from within the network itself to respond to custom events. Further, because custom events are published across the network, multiple network elements can communicate and respond to the same event. Thus, unlike currently available event management systems, custom events (and responding applications) can be used to create and coordinate software defined networking within a common network infrastructure.

Claims

1. A networking device, comprising:

a processor;

a traffic management component; and

a memory storing a container, independent from the traffic management component, hosting an application, which, when executed on the processor, performs an operation for responding to a network event, the operation comprising;

receiving a notification that an instance of the network event has occurred, wherein the notification indicates an event type and includes metadata associated with the instance of the network event, and

in response, executing one or more functions of the application.

2. The networking device of claim 1, wherein the notification is received from an event monitor on the networking device.

3. The networking device of claim 2, wherein the application registers a callback function with the event monitor, and wherein the callback function is invoked with the notification.

4. The networking device of claim 1, wherein the notification is received from a second networking device over a network control plane of the common networking infrastructure.

5. The network device of claim 1, wherein at least one of the executed functions generates an event published to application on a second network device over a network control plane of the common networking infrastructure.

6. The networking device of claim 1, wherein the event is generated in response to a service monitoring component executing on the network device determining that a monitored service metric as passed a threshold value.

7. The networking device of claim 1, wherein the event is generated in response to network traffic managed by the traffic management component being processed on the network device.

8. The networking device of claim 1, wherein the networking device is one of a switch and a router.

9. A method for processing network events on a network device in a common network infrastructure, the method comprising:

launching, in a container independent from a traffic management component of the network device, an application;

registering the application to receive notifications of at least a first network event;

receiving, by the application, a notification that an instance of the first network event has occurred, wherein the notification indicates an event type and includes metadata associated with the instance of the network event; and

in response, executing one or more functions of the application.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the notification is received from an event monitor on the networking device.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising, registering a callback function with the event monitor, wherein the callback function is invoked with the notification.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the notification is received from a second networking device over a network control plane of the common networking infrastructure.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one of the executed functions generates an event published to application on a second network device over a network control plane of the common networking infrastructure.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the event is generated in response to a service monitoring component executing on the network device determining that a monitored service metric as passed a threshold value.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the event is generated in response to network traffic managed by the traffic management component being processed on the network device.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the networking device is one of a switch and a router.

17. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, which, when executed on a processor, performs an operation for processing network events on a network device in a common network infrastructure, the operation comprising:

launching, in a container independent from a traffic management component of the network device, an application;

registering the application to receive notifications of at least a first network event;

receiving, by the application, a notification that an instance of the first network event has occurred, wherein the notification indicates an event type and includes metadata associated with the instance of the network event; and

in response, executing one or more functions of the application.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the notification is received from an event monitor on the networking device.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the operation further comprises, registering a callback function with the event monitor, wherein the callback function is invoked with the notification.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the notification is received from a second networking device over a network control plane of the common networking infrastructure.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein at least one of the executed functions generates an event published to application on a second network device over a network control plane of the common networking infrastructure.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the event is generated in response to a service monitoring component executing on the network device determining that a monitored service metric as passed a threshold value.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the event is generated in response to network traffic managed by the traffic management component being processed on the network device.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the networking device is one of a switch and a router.