SDN API Abstraction for Network Element Programmability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional networking systems lack programmability and automation, becoming impractical as they grow in complexity and require real-time responses to external changes, with intelligence typically residing in frameworks rather than network devices.
Innovation Solution
Implementing software-defined networking (SDN) systems that provide network elements with ingress and egress interfaces and a routing information base, along with application programming interfaces (APIs) to abstract properties and events, allowing SDN applications to manage and configure network operations directly on hardware devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If networks are configured at individual devices using traditional frameworks, then network operations can be implemented, but the system lacks programmability and becomes impractical as networks grow in complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the intelligence and control logic from individual network devices and frameworks, placing it instead in SDN applications that run on network elements themselves. This allows programmability to be moved from the framework layer to the network device layer, enabling each device to execute its own control logic while maintaining overall network programmability through a standardized API interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the network control function into independent, executable units that can be deployed on individual network elements. By dividing the control plane into discrete, programmable components that reside on network devices rather than centralized frameworks, the system achieves both programmability and manageable complexity through modular architecture.
2Speed
If networks become more complex to handle real-time external changes, then responsiveness improves, but individual device configuration becomes impractical
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables network elements to serve themselves by executing SDN applications directly on the devices. Each network element can autonomously respond to external changes and network events based on the programmable logic deployed on it, eliminating the need for centralized configuration management while maintaining rapid response times.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent allows SDN applications to be pre-deployed on network elements with the control logic and response strategies already in place. When external changes occur, the network elements can immediately execute pre-configured response actions without requiring real-time configuration updates, thus maintaining both speed and operational simplicity.
3Extent of automation
If intelligence is placed in frameworks rather than network devices, then centralized control is achieved, but programmability at the network level is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the traditional architecture by placing intelligence in the network devices rather than in external frameworks. SDN applications run directly on network elements, enabling each device to have its own programmable logic while still maintaining coordinated control through standardized APIs, thus achieving both automation and programmability simultaneously.
Data Source
AI summary
System, method, and computer program product to orchestrate software defined networking (SDN) applications, by providing a plurality of network elements in a network, each network element comprising a plurality of ingress interfaces, a plurality of egress interfaces, and a routing information base (RIB), providing, to an SDN application, an application program interface (API) to abstract properties and events of: (i) the ingress interfaces, (ii) the egress interfaces, and (iii) the RIB of a specified network element, receiving a request from the SDN application apply a function to the specified network element, the function specifying to modify: (i) a preprocessing operation on a data packet, (ii) the RIB, (iii) a post processing operation on the data packet, and (iv) the properties of the ingress interfaces, egress interfaces, and RIBs of the specified network element, and applying the function to the specified network element through the API.