Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention can use a protocol-independent, vendor-independent, efficient and scalable abstraction model for representing the forwarding functionality of networks. Such a model can be used for systematic analysis and verification of networks. Packet header values may be represented as groups of one or more wildcarded bit strings, where unspecified header values are assumed to be fully wildcarded. This representation can describe many combinations of packets in a space-efficient way, enables more efficient tracing and transformation operations, and can even represent traffic from large internet routing tables efficiently. As a result of the scalability benefits of this more effective way to store and operate on packet collections, network modeling can scale to some of the largest, most complicated networks—those where the benefits are the greatest.

Abstract: Embodiments relate generally to network hardware, network software and methods for network management and testing. In some embodiments, state information (e.g., configuration data, forwarding states, IP tables, rules, network topology information, etc.) can be received from devices in a network. The state information can be parsed and used to generate a network model, which describes how data is processed by the network. Using the model, possible flow paths of data through the network can be identified and used to analyze the network and identify network behavior, such as types of traffic, frequency of rule matches, what kind of transformation occurs as traffic flows through the network, and where the traffic gets dropped, etc. Policies can be verified against the network model to ensure compliance, and in the event of non-compliance, a report or interface can indicate the cause and/or allow a user to explore specific details about the cause.