Switch management system and method

A switch comprising:

• a plurality of processor elements upon which a network operating system (NOS), in which software objects represent a basic unit of management, is executing;
• wherein the NOS includes an object manager (OM) responsible for managing global software object groups, managing software object configurations, managing local software objects and groups and routing control information between address spaces based on locations of software objects;
• wherein the OM performs management plane communications among a plurality of software objects by way of system calls;
• wherein the OM performs data plane communications among the plurality of software objects by way of object-to-object channels;
• and
• wherein the switch is provisioned with a network-based managed Internet Protocol (IP) service for a particular customer of a plurality of customers of a service provider by pushing the network-based managed IP service onto an object-to-object channel that has been established between a first software object and a second software object of the plurality of software objects.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of a switch tangibly embodying a set of instructions representing a network operating system (NOS) for a plurality of processor elements (PEs) of the switch in which software objects represent a basic unit of management and which when executed by the plurality of PEs cause the PEs to perform a method comprising:

• instantiating an object manager (OM) responsible for managing global software object groups, managing software object configurations, managing local software objects and groups and routing control information between address spaces based on locations of software objects;
• performing, by the OM, management plane communications among a plurality of software objects by way of system calls;
• performing, by the OM, data plane communications among the plurality of software objects by way of object-to-object channels;
• and
• provisioning the switch with a network-based managed Internet Protocol (IP) service for a particular customer of a plurality of customers of a service provider by pushing the network-based managed IP service onto an object-to-object channel that has been established between a first software object and a second software object of the plurality of software objects.