Traffic Recovery in Openflow Networks

摘要

Traffic recovery is supported at a switching node (20) of an OpenFlow network (5). The switching node (20) has a flow table (23) for storing flow entries (24) which determine forwarding of received packets between the ports. A switching node (20) installs (102) a flow entry for a back up path in the flow table (23). The switching node (20) renews (104, 105) the flow entry for the backup path based on at least one of: (i) an association between the flow entry for the backup path and a flow entry for a working path at the switching node, wherein the flow entry for the backup path is renewed when the flow entry for the working path is used to forward a received packet; (ii) receiving a flow entry renewal packet from another switching node on the backup path. A backup path can be configured for each of multiple points of failure in the working path.

主权项

1. A method of supporting traffic recovery at a switching node of an OpenFlow network, wherein the switching node has a plurality of ports and the switching node has at least one flow table for storing flow entries which determine forwarding of received packets between the ports, the method comprising:
receiving an instruction from a controller to configure a backup path at the switching node; installing a flow entry for the backup path in the at least one flow table of the switching node; and renewing the flow entry for the backup path based on at least one of:
an association between the flow entry for the backup path and a flow entry for a working path at the switching node, wherein the flow entry for the backup path is renewed when the flow entry for the working path is used to forward a received packet;receiving a flow entry renewal packet from another switching node on the backup path.