Network Controller for Managing Software and Hardware Forwarding Elements

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. A method of implementing a logical switching element from software and hardware switching elements, the method comprising:
from a network controller, sending a first transaction that instructs a database server on the hardware switching element to write to a database a logical forwarding element identifier (LFEI) that identifies a logical switch; from the network controller, sending a second transaction that instructs the database server on the hardware switching element to write to the database an address of at least one software switching element that use the LFEI,
wherein the hardware switching element uses the address to establish a tunnel between the hardware switching elements and the software switching element, and wherein the hardware and software switching elements implements the logical switching element by sending packets over the established tunnel using the LFEI.