Network Controller for Managing Software and Hardware Forwarding Elements

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a set of one or more network controllers that communicates with a wide range of devices, ranging from switches to appliances such as firewalls, load balancers, etc. The set of network controllers communicates with such devices to connect them to its managed virtual networks. The set of network controllers can define each virtual network through software switches and / or software appliances. To extend the control beyond software network elements, some embodiments implement a database server on each dedicated hardware. The set of network controllers accesses the database server to send management data. The hardware then translates the management data to connect to a managed virtual network.

Description

CLAIM OF BENEFIT TO PRIOR APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61 / 887,117, entitled “Managing Software and Hardware Forwarding Elements to Define Virtual Networks”, filed Oct. 4, 2013. U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61 / 887,117 is incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND[0002]Many current enterprises have large and sophisticated networks comprising switches, hubs, routers, servers, workstations and other networked devices, which support a variety of connections, applications and systems. The increased sophistication of computer networking, including virtual machine migration, dynamic workloads, multi-tenancy, and customer specific quality of service and security configurations require a better paradigm for network control. Networks have traditionally been managed through low-level configuration of individual components. Network configurations often depend on the underlying network: for example, blocking a user's access w...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a system that allows multiple writers to access and modify a database. It ensures that transactions are performed reliably and accurately, even if some operations may fail. The system also includes a mechanism for removing unnecessary data from the database to prevent it from becoming too large. Additionally, the patent describes a network controller that is able to implement logical switching elements using software and hardware components. This allows for the efficient management of network traffic and the creation of secure tunnels.

Problems solved by technology

This process is of increased difficulty where the network switching elements are shared across multiple users.

Three of the many challenges of large networks (including datacenters and the enterprise) are scalability, mobility, and multi-tenancy and often the approaches taken to address one hamper the other.

The extender also introduces one extra hop that can hinder performance and latency.

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