Software defined network controller

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9450817-B1
Application number	US-201314042614-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 30, 2013
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Sep 20, 2016
Grant date	Sep 20, 2016

Abstract

An extensible software defined network (SDN) controller is described that provides an application-aware framework that enable a variety of different user applications to communicate with the controller and that allows the controller to automatically configure devices in a network based on the needs of the applications. For example, the controller includes a plurality of different northbound interfaces that enable a variety of different user applications to communicate with the controller. The controller also includes multiple southbound protocols for configuring and enabling functionality in network devices based on the communications with the user applications.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A software-defined network (SDN) controller that manages a network of one or more network devices, the SDN controller comprising:
a memory;
one or more processors in communication with the memory;
one or more databases configured to store network topology information and network state information for the network devices;
a plurality of network device protocol interfaces comprising a path computation element protocol (PCEP) adapter and a software-defined networking protocol adapter, wherein each of the network device protocol interfaces is configured to exchange state information with at least one of the network devices, wherein the state information comprises at least one of network topology information and network device state information;
one or more application interfaces configured to receive, from applications, requests for application-specific network configurations;
a plurality of core modules operable by the one or more processors and configured to receive the requests for application-specific network configurations from the one or more application interfaces, and compute respective network configurations to conform the network topology and network device states to satisfy the requests, wherein the plurality of core modules comprises a path computation engine to compute a path for the network topology and a software-defined networking controller core module; and
one or more core applications operable by the one or more processors and configured to receive the respective network configurations from the plurality of core modules, generate network device state information to implement the computed network configurations, and use respective ones of the plurality of network device protocol interfaces to program the network device state information to the network devices to program the network configurations in the network, wherein the one or more core applications comprise a path provisioning module, wherein the path provisioning module controls the PCEP adapter to provide an indication of the path to a head-end network device of the path, and wherein one or more of the core applications uses the software-defined networking protocol adapter to map a data stream to the path.

2. The SDN controller of claim 1 , further comprising:
one or more applications configured to use the application interfaces to orchestrate the core modules to compute respective network configurations to satisfy a plurality of the requests for a corresponding plurality of concurrent application-specific network configurations.

3. The SDN controller of claim 2 , wherein one of the applications comprises a connectivity on-demand application configured to use the application interfaces to orchestrate the core modules to compute a network configuration for a request for an application-specific network configuration that connects a plurality of endpoints reachable by the network.

4. The SDN controller of claim 2 , wherein one of the applications comprises a firewall-in-cloud application configured to use the application interfaces to orchestrate the core modules to compute a network configuration for a request for an application-specific network configuration that includes firewall rules for the network devices.

5. The SDN controller of claim 1 , wherein the application interfaces comprise at least one of a video-on-demand service interface, a connectivity-on-demand service interface, a firewall-in-cloud service interface, and a data replication service interface.

6. The SDN controller of claim 5 ,
wherein the video-on-demand service interface receives a request from a video service application for streaming video for a user device,
wherein the video-on-demand service interface uses one of the application interfaces to query the databases to determine an endpoint that serves the streaming video,
wherein the video-on-demand service interface uses the connectivity-on-demand service interface to install a connection between the user device and the endpoint.

7. The SDN controller of claim 1 , wherein the software-defined networking controller core module comprises an OpenFlow controller core module.

8. The SDN controller of claim 1 , wherein the network device protocol interfaces further comprise at least one of an application-layer traffic optimization protocol interface, a Border Gateway Protocol interface, a firewall rule installation protocol interface, a charging rule installation protocol interface, and a policy rule installation protocol interface.

9. The SDN controller of claim 1 , wherein the one or more databases comprise at least one of a traffic engineering database, a multi-topology traffic engineering database, an application-layer traffic optimization (ALTO) map, and a routing information base.

10. The SDN controller of claim 1 , wherein the network device protocol interfaces, application interfaces, core modules, and core applications provide open interfaces to enable a modular plugin architecture for adding or replacing any of the network device protocol interfaces, application interfaces, core modules, and core applications.

11. The SDN controller of claim 10 , wherein any of the network device protocol interfaces, application interfaces, core modules, and core applications added or replaced serve a special-purpose application or network orchestration function.

12. The SDN controller of claim 1 ,
wherein the controller comprises a first controller,
wherein a first one of the network device protocol interfaces is configured to exchange state information with a second controller that manages an additional network device, and
wherein the first controller uses the first one of the network device protocol interfaces to communicate with the second controller to manage the additional network device.

13. The SDN controller of claim 1 ,
wherein the controller comprises a first controller,
wherein a first one of the application interfaces is configured to exchange state information with a second controller that manages an additional network device, and
wherein the first controller uses the first one of the application interfaces to communicate with the second controller to manage the additional network device.

14. The SDN controller of claim 1 , wherein the one or more databases comprise a multi-topology traffic engineering database to store topology information for a base network layer of a multi-topology network that comprises a plurality of network switches interconnected by base network layer three (L3) links in a base network topology and to store topology information for an overlay network layer of the multi-topology network that comprises a plurality of overlay switches interconnected by overlay network links in an overlay network topology, wherein each of the overlay network links represents a path through the base network connecting two of the overlay switches,
wherein the one or more network device protocol interfaces comprise a topology server interface to receive topology information for the base network layer, and an overlay controller interface to receive topology information for the overlay network layer,
wherein the one or more core modules comprise a service path engine to compute a path to carry traffic between two endpoints through one or more layers of the multi-topology network based on the requests for application-specific network configurations using the topology information for the base network layer and the topology information for the overlay network layer, and
wherein the path provisioning module installs forwarding information for the path to one or more of the network switches and overlay switches.

Assignees

• Juniper Networks Inc

Inventors

• Bahadur Nitin
• Gray Kenneth E

Classifications

• H04L41/0813 Primary

  characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings · CPC title

• H04L41/122

  of virtualised topologies, e.g. software-defined networks [SDN] or network function virtualisation [NFV] · CPC title

• H04L41/0895 Primary

  Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements · CPC title

• H04L45/30

  Routing of multiclass traffic · CPC title

• H04L65/612

  for unicast · CPC title