Third Network Manager for SDN Migration
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current technologies lack effective tools for migrating network components between different cloud deployments, including private and public clouds, which hampers seamless transition and management of software-defined networks across varying virtualization platforms.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a third network manager that provides a graphical user interface and application programming interface to specify, review, and deploy logical network components, along with a migration manager that uses templates to convert and migrate these components between different software-defined networks, ensuring compatibility across different deployments and virtualization platforms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If network components are migrated between different cloud deployments using existing tools, then migration capability is achieved, but compatibility issues arise when different network virtualization platforms are used
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a third network manager as an intermediary that mediates between the first and second network managers. This third manager provides a common interface for defining logical network components and uses templates to translate between different virtualization platforms, enabling compatible migration while maintaining migration accuracy through structured translation rules.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs templates that map logical network component parameters from one virtualization platform to another. By changing the parameter representations through template-based translation, the system achieves compatibility across different platforms while preserving the semantic meaning and functional accuracy of the migrated components.
2Ease of operation
If a third network manager provides interfaces for specifying and reviewing logical network components, then ease of operation is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The third network manager provides universal interfaces (both graphical and programmatic) that can be used across different cloud deployments and virtualization platforms. This multi-functional interface layer simplifies operation for users while the underlying complexity of different platforms is abstracted away through the common template-based translation system.
3Adaptability or versatility
If templates are used to map logical component sets between deployments, then adaptability across virtualization platforms is improved, but manufacturing precision of migration conversion is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different template mappings depending on the specific virtualization platform and component type involved in the migration. Each template is designed with specific local quality characteristics that match the source and target platforms, enabling both adaptability across platforms and precision in component conversion through customized mapping rules.
Data Source
AI summary
Some embodiments provide a method of migrating a first software defined (SD) network managed by a first network manager to a second SD network managed by a second network manager. The method of some embodiments is performed by a third network manager that provides an interface that allows a set of users to specify and review logical network components, which the first and second network managers can then respectively deploy in the first and second SD networks. The third network manager in some embodiments identifies for a migration manager a first group of two or more logical network components that the third network manager previously specified for the first network manager to deploy in the first SD network. The migration manager then uses this information to correctly convert the first group of logical network components to a second group of two or more logical components in an appropriate manner that will allow the third network manager to manage the second group of logical network components that is implemented in the second SD network.