IMPLEMENTING A TRANSITION PROTOCOL IN WHICH A FIRST RULE SET FOR ROUTING PACKETS RECEIVED BY A GROUP OF SWITCHES DURING A FIRST TIME PERIOD IS UPDATED TO A SECOND RULE SET

摘要

A transition protocol is provided herein in which a first rule set for routing packets received by a group of switches during a first time period is to be updated to a second rule set. During a transition period, at least some switches in the group of switches route packets to a controller, while other switches in the group of switches route packets to a next hop that is unchanged by the change in the rule set. The controller forwards packets that are received from at least some of the switches in the group to a destination node each of the packets, as determined from the updated rule set.