Ciena Corporation

David Bainbridge

Systems, methods and apparatuses provide a disaggregated network operating system in which control plane and data plane components of the network operating system are distributed across a network controller and network elements. An information model describes a network element and identifies packet processing plug-ins executable by general purpose processors of the network element. The network controller uses the model to generate a packet pipeline program for execution by a programmable packet pipeline of the network element, and generates a list of packet processing plug-ins for handling offload conditions. The network controller transmits the packet pipeline program and list of packet processing plug-ins to the network element. The network element installs the packet pipeline program to the programmable packet pipeline and downloads the listed packet processing plug-ins. When the pipeline detects an offload condition, the pipeline forwards the network packet to the packet processing plug-in associated with the offload condition.

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Summerville, SC, United States of America

David Bainbridge