US 12,659,275 B2 · Distributed software defined network architecture

Abstract

The present disclosure is a decentralized Software Defined Network (dSDN) which runs individual dSDN controllers at each router in the network, disseminating network state via an inter-router communication protocol. In some examples, the dSDN is an underlay and is coexistant with an out-of-band software defined network (SDN) control plane, thus achieving a unified architecture that applies across both overlay and underlay. In both the overlay and the underlay, path computation is based on global state, such as a complete view of a network connectivity graph and traffic demands. An end-to-end path that a packet takes may be determined by a localized computation that is run at a single node, such as an SDN controller in the overlay or a head-end router in the dSDN underlay. The network may be partitioned into domains and the same approach may be applied within and across domains.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system, comprising:

a plurality of routers in a network, each router having a decentralized software-defined networking (dSDN) controller, wherein at least a first router of the plurality of routers is configured to:
receive, at a first dSDN controller of the first router, a node state from each other router in the plurality of routers in the network, the node state comprising information of the status of routers of the plurality of routers adjacent the first router;
determine, by the first dSDN controller of the first router based on the received node state from each other router, a global view of the network;
compute, by the first dSDN controller of the first router, a first set of end-to-end paths over the global view of the network;
perform, by the first dSDN controller of the first router, a runtime validation of the first set of end-to-end paths to detect errors in the network state;
and
forward, by the first dSDN controller of the first router, packets using strict source routing over the first set of end-to-end paths.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Distributed software defined network architecture

Life of this patent

Distributed software defined network architecture

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20