Patent attributes
A method implemented by a network element monitor OpenFlow data flows and enable operations, administration and management (OAM) functionality in OpenFlow. The method inserts OpenFlow OAM packets into an OpenFlow data flow to monitor the OpenFlow data flow, wherein inserted OpenFlow OAM packets have fate sharing with data packets in the OpenFlow data flow. The method comprises the steps of receiving by the network element the OpenFlow OAM packets from a source through a port of the network element, matching by an OpenFlow switch module using a matching structure of OpenFlow data packets received by the network element to identify the OpenFlow OAM packets, and forwarding the identified OpenFlow OAM packets to a flow table or group table of the OpenFlow switch module to aggregate the OpenFlow OAM packets with a corresponding OpenFlow data flow.
