Database Protocol for Exchanging Forwarding State with Hardware Switches

摘要

Some embodiments provide a set of one or more network controllers that communicates with a wide range of devices, ranging from switches to appliances such as firewalls, load balancers, etc. The set of network controllers communicates with such devices to connect them to its managed virtual networks. The set of network controllers can define each virtual network through software switches and/or software appliances. To extend the control beyond software network elements, some embodiments implement a database server on each dedicated hardware. The set of network controllers accesses the database server to send management data. The hardware then translates the management data to connect to a managed virtual network.

主权项

1. For a network controller that manages software and hardware switching elements, the method comprising:
sending management data to the hardware switching element using a protocol to add the hardware switching element to a virtual network managed by the network controller, wherein the virtual network includes at least one software switching element; to manage traffic between the hardware and software switching element, exchanging forwarding states with the hardware switching element through the protocol's asynchronous notification,
wherein the forwarding state of the software switching element is asynchronously sent from the network controller to the hardware switching element when the software's forwarding state has changed, andwherein the forwarding state of the hardware switching element is asynchronously received at the network controller from the hardware switching element when the hardware's forwarding state has changed.