Orchestration of subnetwork extensions across a wide area network

A system, comprising:

• a network orchestrator computing device;
• a headend gateway;
• and
• a manager branch gateway of a branch gateway cluster, including:
• processing circuitry;
• and
• a memory including instructions that, when executed by the processing circuitry, cause the manager branch gateway to:
• upon receiving a first command from the network orchestrator computing device, establish a wide area network (WAN) uplink tunnel to forward data traffic of an extended virtual local area network (VLAN) between the manager branch gateway and the headend gateway;
• upon receiving a second command from the network orchestrator computing device, establish intracluster tunnels between the manager branch gateway and other branch gateways of the branch gateway cluster to forward data traffic of the extended VLAN;
• upon receiving a third command from the network orchestrator computing device, transmit a loop detection message across the WAN uplink tunnel;
• upon receiving the loop detection message, determine that a tunnel loop exists;
• and
• forward the loop detection message to the network orchestrator computing device.

A method, comprising:

• transmitting a first command from a network orchestrator computing device of a wide area network (WAN) to a first branch gateway of a branch gateway cluster and a first headend gateway of a core site to establish a WAN uplink tunnel to forward data traffic of an extended virtual local area network (VLAN) between the first branch gateway and the first headend gateway;
• transmitting a second command from the network orchestrator computing device to a set of branch gateways of the branch gateway cluster to establish intracluster tunnels between the first branch gateway and the set of branch gateways to forward data traffic of the extended VLAN between the first branch gateway and the set of branch gateways;
• transmitting a third command from the network orchestrator computing device to the first headend gateway to determine whether a tunnel loop exists;
• receiving a loop detection message at the network orchestrator computing device from the first headend gateway indicating that a tunnel loop exists;
• and
• transmitting a fourth command from the network orchestrator computing device to the first headend gateway to block message flooding across the WAN uplink tunnel.