Patent ID: 11895023
Assignee: NICIRA, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 13:
14. A method for configuring a managed hardware forwarding element (MHFE) to perform packet forwarding operations for a logical network, the method comprising:
receiving data for the logical network that defines a logical router and a set of logical switches for logically connecting a plurality of end machines operating on a plurality of host machines to a plurality of physical machines that are connected to the MHFE;
defining a plurality of routing components for the logical router based on the received logical network data, each routing component comprising a separate set of logical ports; and
configuring a forwarding table on the MHFE by populating the forwarding table with tunnel endpoint data for each logical port of each routing component of the logical router that is associated with a logical port of a logical switch;
wherein the logical router spans the MHFE and forwarding elements on the host machines that implement the logical router, while each logical switch spans the MHFE and the forwarding elements on the host machines that implement the logical switch;
wherein the forwarding elements on the host machines connect to the end machines operating on the host machines and the MHFE connects to the end machines only through the forwarding elements on the host machines as the MHFE is a standalone hardware appliance that operates outside of the host machines.