Patent ID: 9544182
Date: 2017-01-10
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method of monitoring a status of a network configured to forward network packets, each said network packet comprising a packet header and packet payload, said network comprising a plurality of flow-table controlled switches, switch controllers and at least one manager device; each said flow-table controlled switches comprising a flow-table controlled packet forwarding switch with a plurality of ports, and a unique network switch address, said switch further configured to perform network packet forwarding by a process of automatically comparing said packet header to flow-table packet header filters, and if a match is found, to automatically process said packet according to corresponding flow-table instructions, and if a match is not found, designating said packet as an exception packet and automatically forwarding, as a forwarding switch, said packet to a switch controller according to flow-table packet non-matching instructions; each said switch controller comprising a processor and software configured to receive said exception packets, determine an action based on at least the headers of said exception packets, and to transmit, to said forwarding switch, flow-table configuration commands that update said forwarding switch's flow-table filters and corresponding forwarding instructions to subsequently recognize the header of said exception packet and to forward said exception packet and subsequent packets with the same characteristics according to said updated forwarding instructions; said method comprising: providing at least one monitoring gateway comprising a processor, memory, and software, each said gateway having a unique network gateway address and configured to repeatedly receive monitoring data of a plurality of said switches, and to store at least some information pertaining to said monitoring data in said memory; each said monitoring gateway further configured to recognize at least some network monitoring commands, and to use said at least some information to respond to said-network monitoring commands with responses that return information related to the status of said network; and each said monitoring gateway further configured to respond to network information requests from at least one manager device and to transmit response information related to the status of said network to said at least one manager device.