HIERARCHICAL NETWORK SUBPARTITIONING

Abstract

A network management system (NMS) comprises one or more network interfaces and one or more processors. The one or more network interfaces are used to communicate with a communication network that includes multiple network devices, wherein the network devices are (i) interconnected via cross-device connections and (ii) connected to network endpoints via endpoint-facing connections.The one or more processors serve to define multiple traffic domains arranged in a hierarchy of two or more levels, to assign the endpoint-facing ports of the network devices to the respective traffic domains, and to configure the network devices to (i) assign incoming packets to the respective traffic domains associated with the endpoint-facing ports through which the incoming packets enter the communication network, and (ii) allow the forwarding of packets only within the respective traffic domains.

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