Network testbed creation and validation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9628339-B1
Application number	US-201615359416-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Nov 22, 2016
Priority date	May 31, 2013
Publication date	Apr 18, 2017
Grant date	Apr 18, 2017

Abstract

Embodiments of network testbed creation and validation processes are described herein. A “network testbed” is a replicated environment used to validate a target network or an aspect of its design. Embodiments describe a network testbed that comprises virtual testbed nodes executed via a plurality of physical infrastructure nodes. The virtual testbed nodes utilize these hardware resources as a network “fabric,” thereby enabling rapid configuration and reconfiguration of the virtual testbed nodes without requiring reconfiguration of the physical infrastructure nodes. Thus, in contrast to prior art solutions which require a tester manually build an emulated environment of physically connected network devices, embodiments receive or derive a target network description and build out a replica of this description using virtual testbed nodes executed via the physical infrastructure nodes. This process allows for the creation of very large (e.g., tens of thousands of network elements) and/or very topologically complex test networks.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
one or more processors coupled to memory;
network element identification instructions stored on the memory, which when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform operations including:
receiving network description information for a target network; and
identifying network elements of the target network based, at least in part, on the received network description information;

a test network comprising a plurality of physical infrastructure nodes to execute a plurality of virtual testbed nodes to replicate the target network; and
network testbed configuration instructions stored on the memory, which when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform operations including:
generating configuration data for the plurality of virtual testbed nodes of the test network, wherein each of the virtual testbed nodes corresponds to one of the identified network elements of the target network;
identifying a first network element and a second network element included in the target network, wherein the first network element is coupled to the second network element via a first link that has a bandwidth larger than any link between each of the plurality of physical infrastructure nodes;
configuring a first and a second virtual testbed node of the plurality of virtual testbed nodes, wherein the first virtual testbed node replicates the first network element, and wherein the second virtual testbed node replicates the second network element; and
allocating a first physical infrastructure node in the plurality of physical infrastructure nodes to execute the first and the second virtual testbed nodes, wherein a hardware communication bus of the first physical infrastructure node provides a second link to couple the first virtual testbed node to the second virtual testbed node, and wherein the bandwidth of the first link is the same as the second link.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
pre-stored testbed node settings data stored on the memory; and
wherein the network testbed configuration instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
identifying the pre-stored testbed node settings data for each of the identified network elements of the target network;
identifying a set of virtual testbed nodes having at least some matching identified pre-stored testbed node settings data; and
allocating a second physical infrastructure node in the plurality of resources to execute the identified set of virtual testbed nodes.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the network testbed configuration instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
determining to not allocate the second physical infrastructure node to execute the identified set of virtual testbed nodes based, at least in part, on an expected memory usage or an expected execution speed indicated by the identified pre-stored testbed node settings data for the set of virtual testbed nodes.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the network testbed configuration instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
identifying a set of virtual testbed nodes having a common virtual image boot state from a base virtual image;
booting a primary virtual testbed node of the set of identified virtual testbed nodes from the base virtual image to generate the common virtual boot state; and
booting the remaining set of identified virtual testbed nodes from the common virtual boot state.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the network configuration data comprises runtime network traffic data from the target network or network exploratory data of the target network, and wherein the network element identification instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
generating a network topology based on the runtime network traffic data or network exploratory data to identify the network elements of the target network, wherein the network description information includes the generated network topology.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the network testbed configuration instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
comparing the network description information of the target network and the configuration data for the plurality of virtual testbed nodes to verify that executing the plurality of virtual testbed nodes replicates the target network.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the network testbed configuration instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
detecting a change to the test network comprising a removal or an insertion of one or more physical infrastructure nodes in the plurality of physical infrastructure nodes of the test network; and
generating updated configuration data for the plurality of virtual testbed nodes of the test network in response to detecting the change to the test network.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
network testbed execution instructions stored on the memory, which when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform operations including:
executing a test for the target network via the test network, wherein the test includes operations for simulating runtime changes for one or more network elements of the target network; and

wherein the network testbed configuration instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
dynamically reconfiguring one of more of the virtual testbed nodes of the test network to simulate the runtime changes for the one or more network elements of the target network.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the test network includes one or more non-virtualized physical nodes.

10. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a data capture subsystem including one or more data collector nodes to store network traffic exchanged between the virtual testbed nodes of the test network during an execution of a test for the target network, wherein the network traffic includes data captured from a second hardware communication bus interconnecting the plurality of physical infrastructure nodes of the test network.

11. The system of claim 10 , the data capture subsystem is further configured to, during execution of the test for the target network, update a destination of the captured network traffic from a first data collector node of the test network to a second data collector node.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the network description information describes the target network as at least one of a large area network, a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) centralized system, a cellular network infrastructure, or a cloud computing infrastructure.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the network testbed configuration instructions include further instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the system to perform further operations including:
designating a set of virtual testbed nodes as network traffic generators, wherein the network traffic generators generate random data streams to create a noisy network environment to

Assignees

• Sandia Corp

Inventors

• Thai Tan Q
• Urias Vincent
• Van Leeuwen Brian P
• Watts Kristopher K
• Sweeney Andrew John

Classifications

• G06F11/263 Primary

  Generation of test inputs, e.g. test vectors, patterns or sequences {; with adaptation of the tested hardware for testability with external testers} · CPC title

• H04L41/12 Primary

  Discovery or management of network topologies · CPC title

• H04L67/42

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L12/4641

  Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] (LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272) · CPC title