A control apparatus includes a packet handling operation setting unit that sets a packet handling operation for processing a packet for a communication node selected from a plurality of communication nodes. The packet handling operation setting unit sets the packet handling operation for communication nodes out of the plurality of communication nodes other than the selected communication node, in response to the fact that it was possible to set the packet handling operation for the selected communication node.

The present disclosure provides for methods, network devices, and computer readable storage media for packet reordering. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a first packet of a first flow at a network device and determining whether flow-identifying information extracted from the first packet matches an existing flow entry. The method also includes, in response to a determination that the flow-identifying information does not match any existing flow entries, generating a new transient flow entry that includes the flow-identifying information and packet-in state. The method also includes forwarding the first packet to a controller via a packet-in stream.

A data traffic management system and method is described. Embodiments of the data traffic management system and method can include creating a plurality of tunnels in a communications network between a data center and a remote network. A failover solution of tearing down a tunnel when an issue is detected and immediately transferring data traffic to a second tunnel is provided. The plurality of data tunnels can be continuously monitored to ensure a viable data tunnel is available when a primary data tunnel fails.

A network apparatus comprising a trunk end point associated with an Ethernet-tree (E-Tree) service in a network domain and configured to forward a frame that comprises a tag according to the tag in the frame, wherein the tag in the frame is a root tag that indicates a root source of the frame or a leaf tag that indicates a leaf source of the frame, and wherein the trunk end point is coupled to a second end point associated with the E-tree service outside the network domain.

A particular network controller receives a first set of inputs from the first controller and a second set of inputs from the second controller. The particular controller then starts to compute a set of outputs using the first set of inputs. After a failure of the first controller, the particular controller receives a third set of inputs from the second controller. The third set of inputs and the first or second set of inputs makes up a group of inputs for being processed together and separately from another group of inputs. The particular controller then receives an indicator from the second controller, which indicates that all inputs of the group of inputs have arrived at the particular controller. After receiving the indicator and after computing the set of outputs completely, the particular controller sends the set of outputs to a fourth controller or to a managed forwarding element.

A network flow management system includes controllers that are each coupled to a subset of switch devices, and a flow management server system that is coupled to each of the controllers. The flow management server system collects first-level flow information for the switch devices from the controllers, and filters and structures the first-level flow information to generate second-level flow information. The flow management server system then analyzes the second-level flow information based on current flow operation policies that are configured to cause the switch devices to perform first flow operations and, in response, determines flow operation policy changes. The flow management server system then distributes updated flow operation policies that includes the flow operation policy changes to each of the controllers, where the updated flow operation policies cause the switch devices to perform second flow operation that are different than the first flow operations.

In general, techniques are described for atomically installing and withdrawing host routes along paths connecting network routers to attenuate packet loss for mobile nodes migrating among wireless LAN access networks and a mobile network. In some examples, whenever the mobile node moves from one attachment point to the next, it triggers the distribution of its host route from the new attachment point toward the service provider network hub provider edge (PE) router that anchors the mobile node on a service provider network. Routers participating in the Mobile VPN install the host route “atomically” from the attachment point to the mobile gateway so as to ensure convergence of the network forwarding plane with the host route toward the new attachment point prior to transitioning mobile node connectivity from a previous attachment point.

A method, system and apparatus for an OpenFlow hybrid architecture network device. In one embodiment, a hybrid approach is enabled by a network device that brackets an OpenFlow forwarding plane with conventional forwarding planes. Interfaces between the OpenFlow forwarding plane is provided via logical ports that pass packets along with associated metadata.

A method and a system for providing an overlay network interworking with an underlay network are disclosed. The method for providing the overlay network interworking with the underlay network comprises a method for providing an overlay based virtual network between data centers (DC) connected with a wide area network (WAN), the method comprises the steps of: identifying accessibility between a source customer system connected to a first network virtualization device included in a first DC and an object customer system connected to a second virtualization device included in a second DC by a network virtualization management device; transferring forwarding information obtained by interworking with the first network virtualization device to the second virtualization device by the network virtualization management device; and configuring a path so as to perform a tunneling process between the first network virtualization device and the second network virtualization device using information on a WAN section and a control command by the network virtualization management device.

The invention includes a method and apparatus for distributing flooding labels within a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) infrastructure supporting Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Media Access Control (MAC) Virtual Private Networking (VPN).