Adding multi-tenant awareness to a network packet processing device on a software defined network (SDN)

• Main Authors: Yuan, Lun-Pin, Williams, Ronald Becker, Lee, Cheng-Ta
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 21.05.2019
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION

"Multi-tenant awareness" is added to a set of one or more packet processing devices in a Software Defined Network (SDN) having a controller. For each of one or more tenants, information in a table associates network protocol address attributes with an Internet Protocol (IP) address unique to the tenant. The table is associated with a multiple-layer translation layer being managed by the SDN controller. As a data packet traverses the translation layer, network protocol address attributes are translated according to values in the table to enable logical routing of the packet (to a given PPD. This translation occurs dynamically (or "on-the-fly") as packets are "on route" to their destination. By implementing a multi-layer network address translation (NAT), one layer may be used to translate network protocol address source attributes, while a second layer may be used to translate network protocol address destination attributes.