KR102188069B1 - Network adapter and Network control method using the network adapter - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed is a network adapter that transfers a control command between a network controller using a first protocol and a network access switch using a second protocol. The network adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a control unit including an adaptation rule table in which an adaptation rule to be applied to a control message received from the network controller is set, and configuration information, status information, and failure information of the access switch according to a second protocol. And a resource manager that collects at least one of statistical information and stores it as resource status information, and transmits the resource status information to the network controller in response to a request made by the first protocol of the network controller, and the first protocol. And a command manager for converting a control command transmitted from the network controller into a second protocol and transmitting the converted control command to the access switch.

Description

Network adapter and network control method using the network adapter

The present invention relates to a network device and a network control method, and more particularly, to a network adapter applicable to an access device in a software defined network (SDN) environment and a network control method using the network adapter.

With the recent rapid development of network-related technologies, various services such as voice, data, and video contents are provided to users through networks. As service providing contents using a network increase, a lot of research and progress are being made on the advancement of network equipment and the control method of the network to handle the rapidly increasing traffic. Network entity virtualization technology, cloud computing, etc. are representative technologies that have been developed and applied to accommodate exploding content.

The hardware-based conventional network structure faces limitations in effectively handling large-capacity traffic with severe dynamic changes. In order to solve this problem, interest in a technology capable of providing structural flexibility to a network is increasing. SDN (software defined network), referred to as a software defined network, is a technology that provides structural flexibility to the network by controlling the network with software.

SDN separates the control plane and the data plane, so that the operator of the network is not bound by the detailed configuration information of the network and can adaptively respond in real time according to the network situation through software control. However, when SDN is introduced into a conventional network, it is accompanied by replacement/change of the conventional network equipment, which acts as a limitation of the introduction of SDN.

The problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a network adapter capable of minimizing change/replacement of equipment of a conventional access network when a software defined network is introduced.

Another problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a network control method capable of adaptively determining a protocol to be used for transmission of a control message in response to a request for speed and reliability using a network adapter.

In one aspect of the present invention, a network adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a control unit including an adaptation rule table in which an adaptation rule to be applied to a control message received from the network controller is set, and the access switch according to a second protocol. A resource that collects at least one of setting information, status information, failure information, and statistics information, stores it as resource status information, and transmits the resource status information to the network controller in response to a request by the first protocol of the network controller And a command manager converting a control command transmitted from the network controller through a manager and a first protocol into a second protocol and transmitting the converted control command to the access switch.

The resource manager transmits the resource status information request requesting real-time information to the command manager when the resource status information request by the first protocol from the network controller requests real-time information, and the command manager The resource state information may be obtained by converting the resource state information request to a second protocol and transmitting it to the access switch.

The first protocol may be an open flow protocol, and the second protocol may be an SNMP or SSH protocol.

The control unit may refer to the adaptation rule table to determine a manager to process the control message.

The adaptation rule table may further include protocol information for converting the control message according to the first protocol.

The adaptation rule may be received from the network controller by the first protocol.

In another aspect of the present invention, a network control method performed by a network adapter for transferring a control command between a network controller using a first protocol and a network access switch using a second protocol according to an embodiment of the present invention is Obtaining an adaptation rule table to be applied to a control command received from the network controller, receiving a control message from the network controller,

And determining a manager to process the control message with reference to the adaptation rule table, and transmitting the control message to the access switch through the second protocol by the determined manager.

When a software defined network (SDN) is introduced, replacement/change of conventional access network equipment can be minimized. Through the SDN protocol adaptation according to the SDN control message type, the access network can provide a service to which the SDN technology is applied without changing the existing access device. It is possible to adaptively determine the protocol to be used for transmission of control messages in response to the demands of speed and reliability, and in combination with SDN, it is possible to control the path in the wired access network, monitor the resource status and failure status.

1 schematically shows the structure of a software defined network to which an embodiment of the present invention can be applied.
2 is a block diagram showing in more detail the structure of an SDN adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention.
3 shows an example of an SDN adapter operation according to an embodiment of the present invention.
4 is an example of setting a command rule table that can be applied to the example of FIG. 3.
5 is a flow chart showing a network control method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the present invention, various modifications may be made and various embodiments may be provided. Specific embodiments are illustrated in the drawings and will be described in detail through detailed description. However, this is not intended to limit the present invention to a specific embodiment, it is to be understood to include all changes, equivalents, and substitutes included in the spirit and scope of the present invention.

In describing the present invention, when it is determined that a detailed description of a related known technology may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention, a detailed description thereof will be omitted. In addition, numbers (eg, first, second, etc.) used in the description of the present specification are merely identification symbols for distinguishing one component from another component.

In addition, in the present specification, when one component is referred to as "connected" or "connected" to another component, the one component may be directly connected or directly connected to the other component, but specially It should be understood that as long as there is no opposing substrate, it may be connected or may be connected via another component in the middle.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In describing the present invention, the same reference numerals will be used for the same means regardless of the drawing numbers in order to facilitate the overall understanding.

1 schematically shows the structure of a software defined network to which an embodiment of the present invention can be applied.

In a wired access network, a terminal is connected to the network through an access device. The access device provides network access to the terminal, and traffic generated by the terminal is transmitted to the network through an edge switch. Hereinafter, the term "access network" refers to a wired network through which a terminal accesses a network (backbone network), and refers to a network between the terminal and an edge switch. The edge switch functions as an access point between the access network and the backbone network.

The SDN application is an application for providing network virtualization, authentication, statistics, and failure information to network administrators.

The SDN controller is a control device that centrally controls a software-defined network, and performs functions such as environment setting, policy decision, and traffic control of each entity under the control, and generates and transmits control messages for this. In an embodiment of the present invention, the SDN controller checks and manages the resource manager for collecting and managing link status, bandwidth, and usage information through the Southbound interface, and the corresponding traffic path requirements. Path Selection Manager that calculates the path and saves it in the database, commands to set or cancel the calculated path, and when setting the path, the path authority setting manager (Path Provisioning Manager).

The SDN access manager is a control device that controls the access network according to the control command of the SDN controller. The SDN access manager includes an SDN adapter that provides the SDN protocol path setting/change/cancellation command to the access device, or provides a function of switching between multiple protocols (SNMP/SSH/telnet) used to collect statistics and fault information. . The SDN adapter may be composed of a resource management unit, an event management unit, and a command management unit.

The resource management unit collects and manages access switch settings, status, failures, and statistical information, the event management unit monitors/manages the network status and the presence or absence of each object, and the command management unit performs the function of monitoring and managing the environment of the access switch. Performs the setting function. The configuration of the access switch may include flow management, VLAN configuration, port configuration, and queue configuration of the access switch.

The access device is a network device that provides network access to a terminal and may include a flow control unit, an SNMP transmission/reception unit, and an SSH-based CLI unit. The flow control unit performs flow control for each subscriber according to the SDN controller setting, and the SNMP transmission/reception unit transmits or receives the status and resource status information of the access device. The SSH-based CLI unit has a function of setting control commands for access devices based on SSH (Secure Shell)r.

2 is a block diagram showing in more detail the structure of an SDN adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The SDN adapter obtains an adaptation rule from the SDN controller and generates an adaptation rule table. Acquisition of the adaptation rule table is performed between the SDN controller and the SDN adapter using the protocol used by the SDN controller. For example, communication between the SDN controller and the SDN adapter can be performed based on openflow and RESTful.

According to the adaptation rule table, the SDN adapter determines an appropriate protocol among protocols provided by the existing access device of the conventional network for the control message transmitted from the SDN controller, and maps the protocol to be applied to each control message to the adaptation rule table. Can be saved.

In a more specific embodiment, in the control message transmitted by the SDN controller, a quick response may be emphasized or a relatively higher reliability may be emphasized according to each desired function.

The SDN adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention may determine a protocol to be adaptively applied according to the nature of the control message received from the SDN controller, convert the control command to the corresponding protocol, and transmit the converted control command to the access device.

The resource management unit, the event management unit, and the command management unit of the SDN adapter may operate in conjunction with each other, and a management unit to process the corresponding control message may be determined according to the nature of the control message received from the SDN controller. In an embodiment, the command management unit may process a control message for which real-time is important and reliable information is requested. The resource management unit may periodically collect and store/manage resource status data (e.g. access switch settings, status, failure, and statistical information). When the SDN controller requests the resource status information, it may respond based on the resource status information that is periodically collected and managed, or the resource status can be responded to the SDN controller by acquiring real-time resource status information through the command management unit.

3 shows an example of an operation of an SDN adapter according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is an example of setting a command rule table applied thereto.

When the adaptation rule table of FIG. 4 is set, the communication between the SDN adapter and the access device using the first protocol and the second protocol is illustrated. Here, the first protocol and the second protocol are SDN controller and SDN adapter. It is a protocol used (understandable) by conventional access devices that are distinct from the SDN protocol (eg openflow) used for intercommunication. The first protocol may be an SNMP protocol and the second protocol may be an SSH/telnet protocol.

When a control message is received from the SDN controller, the manager to process the message is determined according to the adaptation rule table, and the manager to process converts the control message received from the SDN controller into a set protocol and transmits it to the access device. As an example of another implementation, a manager to process a message and a protocol to be converted may be determined according to the adaptation rule table.

When an adaptation rule table is set as in the example of FIG. 4, when a flow inquiry message is received from the SDN controller, the resource manager of the SDN adapter converts the message to the first protocol and processes it, and the flow setting message is When received, the command manager of the SDN adapter converts the message to the second protocol and delivers it to the access device.

The resource manager collects and manages flow, port, queue status, and data transmission volume information using the SNMP protocol, and provides the information to the SDN controller using the SDN protocol, and the event manager provides status information (between the access device and the SDN controller). Provides error messages and asynchronous messages that are transmitted and received.

5 is a flow chart showing a network control method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The SDN adapter acquires an adaptation rule table from the SDN controller (S110). A protocol (e.g. openflow) may be used in the process of obtaining the adaptation rule table. In the adaptation rule table, a manager who will process the control command may be designated for each control command, and a protocol to be converted by the corresponding manager may be designated according to embodiments. In setting the manager to process the control message, the nature of the control message may be considered as described above. Whether reliability should be prioritized, quick response is required, or real-time information is required are examples of factors that can be referred to in determining the manager to process and the protocol to convert.

Upon receiving the control message from the SDN controller (S120), the SDN adapter refers to the adaptation rule table to determine the manager to process the control message (S130), and converts the control message transmitted through the SDN protocol into a protocol that the access device can understand. It converts (S140) and transmits the changed control message (S150).

Meanwhile, the network control method according to an embodiment of the present invention may be implemented in the form of a program command that can be executed through various electronic information processing means and recorded in a storage medium. The storage medium may include program instructions, data files, data structures, etc. alone or in combination.

The program instructions recorded in the storage medium may be specially designed and configured for the present invention, or may be known and usable to those skilled in the software field. Examples of storage media include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks and magnetic tapes, optical media such as CD-ROMs and DVDs, and magnetic-optical media such as floptical disks. hardware devices specially configured to store and execute program instructions such as magneto-optical media and ROM, RAM, flash memory, and the like. Further, the above-described medium may be a transmission medium such as an optical or metal wire, a waveguide including a carrier wave for transmitting a signal specifying a program command, a data structure, or the like. Examples of the program instructions include not only machine language codes such as those produced by a compiler, but also a device that processes information electronically using an interpreter, for example, high-level language codes that can be executed by a computer.

The above-described hardware device may be configured to operate as one or more software modules to perform the operation of the present invention, and vice versa.

The above-described embodiments include examples of various aspects. Although not all possible combinations for representing the various aspects can be described, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that other combinations are possible. Accordingly, the present invention will be said to cover all other replacements, modifications and changes falling within the scope of the following claims.

Claims (10)

As a network adapter located between a network controller and a network access switch operating in different protocols,
Obtaining an adaptation rule table including managers who transmit control messages received from the network controller to the network access switch, and receiving a control message to be transmitted to the network access switch from the network controller, the adaptation rule table A control unit for determining a manager to process the control message with reference;
When the control message is a control message requesting collection of status information of the network access switch, resource status by collecting at least one of setting information, status information, failure information, and statistical information of the network access switch through a first protocol. A resource manager that stores information as information and transmits the resource status information to the network controller in response to the control message; And
When the control message includes a control command transmitted from the network controller to the network access switch, a command manager for converting the control message into a second protocol and transmitting it to the network access switch; and
The network controller and the network adapter communicate with an open flow (OpenFlow) protocol,
The network access switch and the network adapter communicate with each other through the first protocol or the second protocol different from the open flow protocol. delete The method of claim 1,
The first protocol and the second protocol are SNMP or SSH protocols. delete delete delete As a network control method of a network adapter between a network controller and a network access switch operating in different protocols,
Obtaining an adaptation rule table including managers transferring control messages of the network controller to the network access switch;
Receiving a control message to be transmitted from the network controller to the network access switch;
Determining a specific manager to process the control message by referring to the adaptation rule table; And
Converting the control message into a control message of a specific protocol designated for the specific manager by the specific manager, and transmitting the converted control message to the network access switch,
The adaptation rule table is
A command manager for converting a control message including a control command to the network access switch into a first protocol, and
And a resource manager for converting a control message requesting collection of state information of the network access switch to a second protocol,
The network controller and the network adapter communicate with an open flow (OpenFlow) protocol,
The network access switch and the network adapter communicate with the first protocol or the second protocol different from the open flow protocol. delete delete The method of claim 7,
The first protocol and the second protocol are SNMP or SSH protocols.

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