Patent ID: 8718070

Claim:
A distributed network control system for controlling a plurality of managed switching elements that forward data in a network, the distributed network control system comprising: a first controller executing a first network virtualization application that manages a first set of logical data path sets, the first network virtualization application comprising: a first interface for receiving first input logical forwarding plane data; a first filter for identifying received input logical forwarding plane data that specifies any of the first set of logical data path sets in terms of logical forwarding rules and filtering out received input logical forwarding plane data that specifies logical data path sets not managed by the first network virtualization application; and a first converter for converting the identified input logical forwarding plane data for each particular logical data path set managed by the first network virtualization application into physical control plane data for a particular set of the managed switching elements to follow in order to implement the particular logical data path set; and a second controller executing a second network virtualization application that manages a second set of logical data path sets, the second network virtualization application comprising: a second interface for receiving second input logical forwarding plane data; a second filter for identifying received input logical forwarding plane data that specifies any of the second set of logical data path sets in terms of logical forwarding rules and filtering out received input logical forwarding plane data that specifies logical data path sets not managed by the second network virtualization application; and a second converter for converting the identified input logical forwarding plane data for each particular logical data path set managed by the second network virtualization application into physical control plane data for a particular set of the managed switching elements to follow in order to implement the particular logical data path set.