Patent ID: 9246847
Filing Date: 2016-01-26
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method executed by a controller in a software defined network (SDN) to conserve bandwidth over the SDN network by compressing Internet protocol (IP) headers of data packets traversing the SDN network, where the controller implements a control plane of the SDN network, where the SDN network includes a plurality of switches implementing a data plane of the SDN network, and where the IP headers of the data packets remain compressed as the data packets travers the plurality of switches between an ingress switch and an egress switch in the plurality of switches, the ingress switch being an entry point for the data packets as the data packets traverse the SDN network, the egress switch being an exit point for the data packets as the data packets traverse the SDN network, the method comprising the steps of: configuring a flow table of the ingress switch to forward the data packets to a header compressor module in the ingress switch, the flow table in a flow table pipeline; configuring the ingress switch to instantiate the header compressor module, where the header compression module is configured to return data packets to a group table of the flow table pipeline after compression; and configuring the group table of the ingress switch to manage forwarding of the data packets toward the egress switch.