Software-defined networking proxy gateway

1. A software-defined networking (SDN) communication system, comprising:

a server computer system in a networked computing environment;

a plurality of computing nodes operating within the server system;

a hardware gateway that connects the server computer system to a network,

a SDN controller; and

a SDN proxy gateway operating outside of an operation of the SDN controller and being an intermediary between the hardware gateway and the SDN controller, the SDN proxy gateway having:

a SDN controller driver that processes a communication between the SDN controller and the hardware gateway using a set of application programmer interfaces (APIs) that includes a plurality of APIs corresponding to each of plurality of different types of SDN controllers, the communication including a request from a computing node of the plurality of computing nodes to establish a connection to the network;

a SDN proxy gateway translator that transforms instructions within the communication that are in a first format of the SDN controller into translated instructions in a standardized hardware gateway protocol; and

a SDN gateway driver that pushes the translated instructions for establishing the connection to the network to the hardware gateway.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions include logical network information and endpoint information.

3. The system of claim 1 , the controller driver further comprising:

a driver manager that manages a plurality of different drivers and selects a proper driver to process the incoming communication from the SDN controller.

4. The system of claim 1 , the SDN proxy gateway translator further comprising:

a layer 2 gateway translator that bridges a SDN network with a physical LAN network; and

a layer 3 gateway translator that provides routing between subnets in the SDN network and subnets in the physical LAN network.

5. The system of claim 1 , the gateway driver further comprising:

a set of physical network APIs for physical network configurations corresponding to different types of hardware gateways; and

a hardware driver manager that manages a plurality of different hardware drivers and selects a proper hardware driver to communicate with the hardware gateway.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a connection establisher that establishes, in response to the receipt of the translated instructions, the connection to the network by building a direct data path from the hardware gateway to a hypervisor on which the computing node is running, wherein the direct data path is a Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) tunnel.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the networked computing environment is a cloud computing environment, wherein the SDN proxy gateway is a stand-alone utility included within a hypervisor in the cloud computing environment, and wherein the computing node is a cloud resource selected from a group, comprising: a virtual machine instance and a container virtual machine.

8. A method for establishing a software-defined networking (SDN) connection to a network in a networked computing environment, comprising:

processing a communication between a SDN controller and a hardware gateway using a set of application programmer interfaces (APIs) that includes a plurality of APIs corresponding to each of plurality of different types of SDN controllers on a SDN proxy gateway that operates outside of an operation of the SDN controller and is an intermediary between the hardware gateway and the SDN controller, the communication including a request from a computing node of a plurality of computing nodes on a server computer system to establish a connection to the network;

transforming, by the SDN proxy gateway, instructions within the communication that are in a first format of the SDN controller into translated instructions in a standardized hardware gateway protocol; and

pushing, by the SDN proxy gateway, the translated instructions for establishing the connection to the network to the hardware gateway.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the instructions include logical network information and endpoint information.

10. The method of claim 8 , the processing further comprising:

managing a plurality of different drivers corresponding to the different types of SDN controllers; and

selecting, from the plurality of different drivers, a proper driver to process the incoming communication from the SDN controller.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the translated instructions include:

a set of layer 2 gateway translations that bridge a SDN network with a physical LAN network; and

a set of layer 3 gateway translations that provide routing between subnets in the SDN network and subnets in the physical LAN network.

12. The method of claim 8 , the pushing further comprising:

providing a set of physical application programmer interfaces (APIs) for physical network configurations corresponding to different types of hardware gateways;

managing a plurality of different hardware drivers corresponding to the different types of hardware gateways; and

selecting, from the plurality of different hardware drivers, a proper hardware driver to communicate with the hardware gateway.

13. The method of claim 8 , further comprising establishing, in response to the receipt of the translated instructions, the connection to the network by building a direct data path from the hardware gateway to a hypervisor on which the computing node is running, wherein the direct data path is a Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) tunnel.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the networked computing environment is a cloud computing environment, wherein the SDN proxy gateway is a stand-alone utility included within a hypervisor in the cloud computing environment, and wherein the computing node is a cloud resource selected from a group, comprising: a virtual machine instance and a container virtual machine.

15. A computer program product embodied in a computer readable storage medium that, when executed by a computer device, performs a method for establishing a software-defined networking (SDN) connection to a network in a networked computing environment, the method comprising:

processing a communication between a SDN controller and a hardware gateway using a set of application programmer interfaces (APIs) that includes a plurality of APIs corresponding to each of plurality of different types of SDN controllers on a SDN proxy gateway that operates outside of an operation of the SDN controller and is an intermediary between the hardware gateway and the SDN controller, the communication including a request from a computing node of a plurality of computing nodes on a server computer system to establish a connection to the network;

transforming, by the SDN proxy gateway, instructions within the communication that are in a first format of the SDN controller into translated instructions in a standardized hardware gateway protocol; and

pushing, by the SDN proxy gateway, the translated instructions for establishing the connection to the network to the hardware gateway.

16. The program product of claim 15 , the processing further comprising:

providing a set of logical application programmer interfaces (APIs) for logical network configurations corresponding to different types of SDN controllers;

managing a plurality of different drivers corresponding to the different types of SDN controllers; and

selecting, from the plurality of different drivers, a proper driver to process the incoming communication from the SDN controller.

17. The program product of claim 15 , wherein the translated instructions include:

a set of layer 2 gateway translations that bridge a SDN network with a physical LAN network; and

a set of layer 3 gateway translations that provide routing between subnets in the SDN network and subnets in the physical LAN network.

18. The program product of claim 15 the pushing further comprising:

providing a set of physical application programmer interfaces (APIs) for physical network configurations corresponding to different types of hardware gateways;

managing a plurality of different hardware drivers corresponding to the different types of hardware gateways; and

selecting, from the plurality of different hardware drivers, a proper hardware driver to communicate with the hardware gateway.

19. The program product of claim 15 , the method further comprising establishing, in response to the receipt of the translated instructions, the connection to the network by building a direct data path from the hardware gateway to a hypervisor on which the computing node is running, wherein the direct data path is a Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) tunnel.

20. The program product of claim 15 , wherein the networked computing environment is a cloud computing environment, wherein the SDN proxy gateway is a stand-alone utility included within a hypervisor in the cloud computing environment, and wherein the computing node is a cloud resource selected from a group, comprising: a virtual machine instance and a container virtual machine.