Contents

Introduction

During the Beryllium code sprint we plan to define the Fabric as a service API and implement these APIs through a Fabric Manager module and a OVS based VXLAN fabric. Those APIs intend to become a common abstraction layer between the applications and underneath network and abstract away the complexity of traditonal southbound API such as CLI, netconf, OVSDB, Openflow etc... To achieve the goal (becoming a common abstractio layer), we will integrate with GBP project and deliver a GBP renderer to demonstrate its capability in Be release.

API

FaaS feature or bundle exposes the following services to its external consumers. The consumers could be applications outside of ODL or modules within ODL. In Beryllium release, those APIs are limited to be used within ODL only. As FaaS matures, those service will be exposed to be part of ODL northbound.

Status - tentative
As the project progress, the APIs below are subject to change or removed or not implemented for this release according to our integration work with GBP or any internal projects for this release. They are not for ODL northbound used just yet.

Management API

Management API defines housekeeping interfaces to abstract, provision fabric objects as well as its life cycle management from initiation to decommission.

A fabric is an abstraction of a well configured underlay physical network or a portion of a physical network, which internally consists of a list of network nodes,a topology formed by those nodes as well as well configured underlay network ready for further virutulization.

Usally Those nodes supports the same l2 or l3 data path virtualization technology, such as VLAN, TRILL or VXLAN and share a underlay control plane. The control plane could be existing protocol running distributedly on those nodes or centralized provided by the fabric object within the controller.

The management API includes the following functions.

• To compose a fabric object based on a set of physical nodes

Fabric fabric = fabricManager.composeFabric(type, name, topology, typeSpecificOptions)

• To query a Fabric’s internal topology, physical port list, capability and resource

ResourceDescriptor rd = fabric.queryResource(fabricID);

• Add a node to an existing fabric object.

fabric.addNode(Node node)

• Remove a node from an existing fabric object

fabric.removeNode(Node node)

• Add a link to a fabric topology.

fabric.addLink(Link link)

• Remove a link from a fabric Topology.

fabric.removeLink(linkID)

• Decompose a Fabric

fm.decomposeFabric(fabricID)

Core API

Core API defines the core services provided by a fabric object which are used to describe a logical network according to users’ requirements. It is implemented by Fabric object and includes operations for the following key FaaS objects.

• Logical Port

A logical port is a logical counterpart of a physical port and provides layer 2 access point to a logical switch or a logical router. Depends on the variety of mappings to a physical port and a set of physical ports, it could be one of the following types

1. A physical port + logical ID

2. Bundling port + logical id

A bundling port is a object representing a port bundling of a set of physical ports which provides load balancing and HA merits

• L3 Interface

L3 Interface represents a layer 3 access point to a logical router. It could be

1. Unicast L3 interface

2. Multicast L3 interface

Also it could be either public or private.

• Tunnel *

Tunnel object represents a physical link abstraction. it provides Layer 1 connectivity, packet comes in one end of the tunnel and goes out from the other end without changed.

• Logical Switch

Logical Switch is an Layer 2 connectivity abstraction. It supports broadcast, could bind to a subnet, a gateway as well as DHCP services.

• Logical Router

Logical Switch is an Layer 3 connectivity abstraction.

• ACL(Access Control List)

ACL provides stateless flow control. It consists of a set of ACLEntries, each entry includes a pair of Classifier and Action

Port API

• To create a logical Port .

LogicalPort lport = fabric.createLogicalPort(phyiscalportID, logicalID);

• To remove a logical Port .

fabric.removeLogicalPort(lportID);

• To query logical port ‘s stats.

PortStatistics stats = lport.getStatistics()

• To create a l3 Interface.

L3Interface l3if = fabric.createL3Interface(IPAddress, public | private)

• To bind a l3 interface to a logical port.

l3If.bindLP(lpID);

• To bind a l3 interface to a logical switch.

l3if.bindLSW(lsw);

• To query a l3 interface’s stats.

L3Statistics stats = L3if.getStatistics()

Layer 2 API

• Create a Logical Switch

LogicalSwitch lsw = fabric.createLSW(name, resourceID, … )

• Remove a logical Switch

fabric.removeLSW(lswID)

• Attach/remove a logical port to a logical switch