Method for constituting hybrid network spanning trees, method of redundancy, and control system thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9807000-B2
Application number	US-201514878693-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 8, 2015
Priority date	Jul 3, 2015
Publication date	Oct 31, 2017
Grant date	Oct 31, 2017

Abstract

The disclosure is related to a method for constructing hybrid network spanning trees, a method of redundancy, and a control system thereof. The method and system are adapted to a hybrid network system including at least one software-defined network (SDN) and at least one non-SDN network. In the method, a controller of the SDN is employed to collect network packets over the hybrid network. After analyzing the information carried in the network packets, the information relating to the topology can be obtained. Therefore, all the possible spanning trees can be constituted according to the topology. As well, the path delay and path bandwidth respectively for the SDN and non-SDN can also be obtained. The information allows the system to render utility function for every spanning tree. The most suitable spanning tree over the hybrid network system is applied. A mechanism of redundancy is also provided.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for constructing spanning trees over a hybrid network, applied to the hybrid network established by combining at least one Software-Defined Network and at least one non-Software-Defined Network, comprising:
providing a controller used to collect network packets from the at least one Software-Defined Network and from the at least one non-Software-Defined Network; wherein each of the at least one Software-Defined Network includes at least one node which is connected with at least one node in the at least one non-Software-Defined Network;
by resolving identification information from the network packets, acquiring information of a topology of the hybrid network, so as to establish a virtual network topology;
retrieving information relating to path delay and path bandwidth of the at least one Software-Defined Network and the at least one non-Software-Defined Network;
constructing all or part of spanning trees for the hybrid network, in which every spanning tree is attributed to have an average path delay and an average path bandwidth, and accordingly with a corresponding value.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the controller originally operates for the at least one Software-Defined Network.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the at least one Software-Defined Network utilizes an OpenFlow protocol to retrieve information relating to path delay and path bandwidth for every path for the at least one Software-Defined Network.

4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the controller periodically obtains information relating to the topology of the at least one Software-Defined Network under a Link Layer Discovery Protocol.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the controller of the at least one Software-Defined Network collects network Bridge Protocol Data Unit packets sent by traditional switches to a switch of the at least one Software-Defined Network, and resolves identification information, so as to determine connection conditions between the at least one Software-Defined Networks and the at least one non-Software-Defined Networks; in combination with the topology information of the at least one Software-Defined Network obtained by the controller through the Link Layer Discovery Protocol, information relating to the topology of the whole hybrid network system.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein, a path distance between a terminal node within the at least one non-Software-Defined Network and a port of the switch of the at least one Software-Defined Network is estimated, wherein the path distance of non-Software-Defined Network is estimated according to a path cost analyzed from network packets of the Bridge Protocol Data Unit.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising sorting the spanning trees based on the value corresponding to every spanning tree, so as to obtain an optimal spanning tree.

8. The method according to claim 7 , further comprising weighting the average path delay and the average path bandwidth for every spanning tree, so as to configure relative emphasis degrees of performance indexes respectively for the average path delay and the average path bandwidth.

9. A method of redundancy for hybrid network spanning trees, adapted to a hybrid network integrating at least one Software-Defined Network and at least one non-Software-Defined Network, comprising:
utilizing the method for constructing spanning trees for the hybrid network to construct all or part of spanning trees for the hybrid network; wherein corresponding value of every spanning tree is obtained according to an average path delay and an average path bandwidth, and sorting the all or part of spanning trees; and
switching to a next spanning tree when any abnormal condition is detected from received network packets.

10. The method of redundancy according to claim 9 , further comprising determining if a path bandwidth is too small, too long delay, or is broken according to path information carried by the network packets.

11. The method of redundancy according to claim 9 , further comprising weighting the average path delay and the average path bandwidth for every spanning tree, so as to configure relative emphasis degrees of performance indexes respectively for the average path delay and the average path bandwidth.

12. A control system implemented by software, firmware, or hardware for hybrid network spanning trees for performing steps comprising:
collecting network packets from at least one Software-Defined Network and at least one non-Software-Defined Network; wherein each of the at least one Software-Defined Network includes at least one node which is connected with at least one node of the at least one non-Software-Defined Network;
resolving identification information and path information from the network packets collected by the packet acquiring module;
establishing a topology of the hybrid network according to information of the topology obtained through the identification information resolved by the packet analyzing module; and
constructing all or part of spanning trees for the hybrid network according to an average path delay and an average path bandwidth for every path estimated from the path information, so as to obtain a value with respect to every spanning tree.

13. The system according to claim 12 , further comprising connecting to at least one switch of the at least one Software-Defined Network.

14. The system according to claim 12 , further comprising conducting port control according to the path information of the spanning tree when the hybrid network operates under one of the spanning trees.

15. The system according to claim 12 , further comprising a management interface provided for an administrator to manage the control system using a management computer.

Assignees

• Estinet Tech Inc
• Univ Nat Chiao Tung

Inventors

• Wang Shie-Yuan
• Wu Chia-Cheng

Classifications

• H04L45/48 Primary

  Routing tree calculation · CPC title

• H04L45/22

  Alternate routing · CPC title

• H04L12/64

  Hybrid switching systems · CPC title

• H04L45/64

  using an overlay routing layer · CPC title

• H04L45/02

  Topology update or discovery · CPC title