This section describes how ONOS internally represents the infrastructure under its control.

Overview

In order to manage the infrastructure, ONOS must keep track of information about the infrastructure (topology, installed flows, etc) in a form available to its applications. Importantly, the applications must be shielded from protocol-specifics, even if network state information is collected in protocol-specific ways.

As a solution, ONOS maintains protocol-agnostic and protocol-specific network element and state representations that can be translated from one to the other. The former are constructs of the core tier, referred to as Model Objects, and the latter are constructs of the appropriate provider. For example, DeviceStore (and consequently the DeviceManager and DeviceListeners) sees a network device as a Device, whereas the OpenFlowDeviceProvider will see the device as an OpenFlowSwitch. Recall that these two representations are bridged across the provider and core layers by the intermediate transcription into a DeviceDescription. Model Objects are what ONOS exposes to its applications.

Additionally, wherever possible, rich data types are used instead of Java primitives for disambiguation and clarity. For example, IP Addresses are described by the IPAddress class, as opposed to an int, and MAC addresses, with MACAddress, rather than a byte[] or long.These rich data types provide methods to convert the object into analogous primitives where needed.

The rest of this section focuses on the Model Objects.

Model Object Types

The interface definitions and implementations of these objects can be found across several packages under [org.onlab.onos.net.*]. While not formal, implicit object classifications fall out of the organization of these packages.Note that the following list is not comprehensive.

Network Topology

Many of the model objects have graph analogues, as ONOS represents networks as directed graphs.

Network Control

At the application level, directives for the network are expressed as high-level flow rules given as Criteria (Match) and Treatment (Action) pairs. An ONOS instance will have a role for any given device that either allows or denies it from applying changes to the device.

Constructs for manipulating network logic, as well as their construction, are discussed further in Intent Framework. Roles are explained in Cluster Coordination.

Network Packets

Packets, such as from network traffic, and those to be injected into the network, have analogues to the OpenFlow PacketIn and PacketOut. 

Model Object Dependencies

Some entities rely on the existence of other entities, as in the case of Ports, which cannot exist without a Device. Similarly, Links, and by extension, Topologies, cannot exist without Ports serving as endpoints to the Link. We therefore consider Devices to be a first-class entity in ONOS's network representations.

 


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