The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 17, 2015
Filed:
Jul. 06, 2011
Teemu Koponen, San Francisco, CA (US);
Martin Casado, Portola Valley, CA (US);
Paul S. Ingram, Menlo Park, CA (US);
W. Andrew Lambeth, San Mateo, CA (US);
Peter J. Balland, Iii, Dublin, CA (US);
Keith E. Amidon, Los Altos, CA (US);
Daniel J. Wendlandt, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Teemu Koponen, San Francisco, CA (US);
Martin Casado, Portola Valley, CA (US);
Paul S. Ingram, Menlo Park, CA (US);
W. Andrew Lambeth, San Mateo, CA (US);
Peter J. Balland, III, Dublin, CA (US);
Keith E. Amidon, Los Altos, CA (US);
Daniel J. Wendlandt, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Nicira, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Some embodiments of the invention provide a robust scaling-out of network functionality by providing a software layer, called the network hypervisor, that sits between the network forwarding functions (i.e., the forwarding plane) and the network control interfaces (i.e., the control plane). The network hypervisor of some embodiments provides a logical abstraction of the network's forwarding functionality, so that network operators make their control decisions in terms of this abstraction, independent of the details of the underlying networking hardware. The network hypervisor of some embodiments may then 'compile' commands placed against this abstraction into configurations of the underlying hardware. Accordingly, in some embodiments, there are two design challenges: (1) the choice of the network abstraction, and (2) the technology needed to compile the logical 'abstract' controls into low-level configurations.