Fortinet, Inc.
Uninterrupted flow processing by a software defined network (SDN) appliance despite a lost or disrupted connection with an SDN controller

Abstract:

Systems and methods for allowing continuous network traffic processing by an SDN appliance despite a lost or disrupted connection with an SDN controller are provided. According to one embodiment, a software-defined networking (SDN) appliance receives one or more policies/flows from an SDN controller. The policies/flows are locally stored by the SDN appliance within the SDN appliance. Responsive to receipt of a packet to be processed by the SDN appliance, the SDN appliance queries the SDN controller for an appropriate policy or flow for the packet. When a response to the query is not received from the SDN controller within a predefined or configurable timeout period, the SDN appliance processes the packet based on the locally stored one or more policies/flows.