Control device discovery in networks having separate control and forwarding devices

摘要

A Software Defined Network (SDN) includes a plurality of forwarding devices and a routing control device located separate from the forwarding devices. The routing control device, establishes paths to and from the network forwarding devices. Using such paths, forwarding devices send the routing control device information reflecting the topology if the network. Embodiments disclosed herein enable automatic discovery of the topology of the network and the paths to and from the routing control device.

主权项

1. A method for discovering routes from a plurality of forwarding devices to a routing control device in a network, comprising:
(a) receiving, on a port of a forwarding device of the plurality of forwarding devices in the network, a control packet, wherein the port connects the forwarding device to another forwarding device in the plurality of forwarding devices, and the control packet includes a metric indicating an estimated time to route a packet from the other forwarding device to the routing control device; (b) identifying, based at least in part on (i) the port that received the control packet and (ii) the metric in the control packet, which port, on the forwarding device, to forward data to reach the routing control device; and (c) sending a message to the routing control device on the port identified in (b), the message instructing the routing control device to determine a path through the plurality of forwarding devices to a destination of a data stream and to configure a subset of the plurality of forwarding devices to forward the data stream along the determined path.