A control apparatus, includes a first unit configured to be capable of specifying an identification rule to identify a packet based on a user of a virtual network including a plurality of virtual nodes; and a second unit configured to be capable of sending an instruction to a physical node corresponding to each of the virtual nodes of the virtual network, wherein each of the virtual nodes includes a predetermined network function being capable of providing a first packet operation to the packet, wherein the instruction includes that the physical node provides a second packet operation to the packet so as to emulate the first packet operation.

A multicast group allocation method, a centralized control point, and a multicast router are provided. A centralized control point determines a correspondence between at least two multicast groups and at least two RPs in a rendezvous point set according to information about the at least two multicast groups and information about the at least two RPs, where in the correspondence between the at least two multicast groups and the at least two RPs, each RP is corresponding to a same quantity of multicast groups; the centralized control point evenly allocates the at least two multicast groups to the at least two RPs according to the correspondence between the at least two multicast groups and the at least two RPs and diffuses the correspondence between the at least two multicast groups and the at least two RPs to all multicast routers on a PIM network.

This disclosure describes techniques for policy validation techniques relating to data traffic routing among network devices. The techniques may include processing a validation request from a controller. A validation request may include information related to a computed path for routing data traffic in a computing network. The processing may include sending one or more path requests to one or more redundant controllers, and comparing computed paths from the redundant controller(s) to the originally computed path. The techniques may include generating a validation response based on comparing the computed paths. In some examples, the techniques may further include determining a health score for the controller. Policy validation techniques may improve data traffic routing among network devices by helping to ensure valid policies are produced.

A routing structure is defined for provider edge (PE) routers that will create the ability to recompute best paths based on application criteria. The routing structure may include the use of a network controller which is connected with the internet to receive requests from applications to trigger path re-computation. The controller will peer with PEs to send re-computation information used by the PE to construct an application-aware BGP table and forwarding instance. The PE also defines a new BGP and packet filter to replicate specific BGP paths into the application-aware table. The application-aware BGP and forwarding instance is unique to the requesting application. Thus, each request with a different source/destination combination obtains a discrete table providing separation. When a packet enters the PE from customer edge (CE) or core interface the packet traverses a packet filter that when matched against source/destination is redirected to the appropriate application-aware forwarding table. Once in the application-aware table the packet is then forwarded along the application-aware path achieving the objective. The instantiation of the application-aware BGP and forwarding table is be done based on BGP updates learned from the controller.

The invention relates to a central control entity (200) configured to control a data plane flow of a stream of data packages in a radio access network part of a mobile communications network. The central control entity (200) comprises an information detecting unit (210), configured to detect information about data plane applications (41-44) attached to forwarding elements (120-124; 131-134) of the radio access network part and configured to detect information about at least one data plane application (41-44) that is to be applied to said data plane flow. Furthermore, the central control entity (200) comprises a control unit (230), configured to determine a path of the data plane flow through the forwarding elements (120-24; 131-134) of the radio access network part, wherein the control unit (230) is configured to determine the path taking into account said at least one data plane application (41-44) to be applied to said data plane flow, the control unit (230) being further configured to instruct the forwarding element in the path, to which said at least one data place application is attached, to pass the data plane flow through said at least one data plane application (41-44).

A local server is configured to communicate with a plurality of computing devices within a local network. The local server comprises memory for storing instructions and a processor configured to execute the instructions. The instructions cause the processor to dynamically establish a connection with one or more of the plurality of computing devices, the connection identifying the one or more of the plurality of computing devices as data relays; receive data traffic from one or more of the plurality of computing devices within the local network, the data traffic to be communicated to a destination server; transmit the data traffic to the data relays for communication to the destination server via a communication network; receive response data traffic from the data relays; and transmit the response data to the one or more of the plurality of computing devices within the local network.

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 method and device for long-term storage of cross-domain path information are provided. The method is applied on a stateless PCE. In the method, a first PCE computes a path; a path head node sends, to the first PCE, query information for querying intra-domain path information of the first domain corresponding to a first PATH-KEY, generates, on the basis of a query result returned by the first PCE, a third PATH-KEY having a unique identifier and corresponding to the intra-domain path information of the first domain and stores the third PATH-KEY; the path head node sends, to a head node in a second domain, an inter-domain path establishment signalling comprising the third PATH-KEY and a second PATH-KEY, to make the head node in the second domain send, to a second PCE, query information for querying intra-domain path information of the second domain corresponding to the second PATH-KEY, generate, on the basis of a query result returned by the second PCE, a fourth PATH-KEY having a unique identifier and corresponding to the intra-domain path information of the second domain, and store the fourth PATH-KEY; and, the path head node modifies information of the path from the path head node to the path tail node on the basis of a reverse signalling returned by the path tail node and comprising the third PATH-KEY and the fourth PATH-KEY.

In a distributed control system including a central communication device, terminal communication devices to which target devices to be controlled are connected, and a network including multiple communication paths connecting the central communication device and terminal communication devices, each terminal communication device includes a calculation input/output performance storage unit storing input/output performance of a calculation unit for controlling the target devices to be controlled and a control input/output performance storage unit storing the performance of the input/output control units of the target devices to be controlled, and the central communication device collects input/output performance information previously stored in these storage units, determines communication paths of the terminal communication units and a packet division method in such a manner that an amount of a communication data of a network and response performance requested of the distributed control system are satisfied, on the basis of the collected input/output performance information and sets the determination results in the terminal communication devices.