Patent ID: 9014181
Filing Date: 2015-04-21
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A network architecture, comprising: a data plane being a network for carrying data traffic, the data plane including a plurality of forwarding elements (FEs) interconnected to each other; a control plane being another network for control traffic that is separate from the data plane, the control plane including a plurality of control elements (CEs) interconnected to each other and multiple feature servers (FSs), each CE controls at least two of the FEs and is dynamically bound to said at least two controlled FEs, so that each FE is adapted to discover a corresponding CE to control said each FE, and each FS is interfaced with multiple FEs; and an interface between the data plane and the control plane using a protocol, wherein the control plane being physically separate from the data plane comprises private links between the CEs to thereby enable out-of-band control communication therebetween, wherein each FS is adapted to add a value-added functionality including one or more network-based applications comprising any of: a Quality of Service (QoS) application, a multicast application, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) application and a mobility application, wherein routing protocols keep track of data plane and control plane topologies and any change or failure in the data plane topology is communicated to the CEs.