MONITORING VIRTUALIZED NETWORK

• US 20140029451A1
• Filed: 07/27/2012
• Published: 01/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gigamon Incorporated (Elliott Capital Advisors LP)
• Original Assignee: Gigamon Incorporated (Elliott Capital Advisors LP)
• Inventors: Nguyen, Hung
• Granted Patent: US 9,769,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

A method of monitoring virtualized network includes receiving information regarding the virtualized network, wherein the information is received at a port of a network switch appliance, receiving a packet at a network port of the network switch appliance, and using the received information to determine whether to process the packet according to a first packet processing scheme or a second packet processing scheme, wherein the first packet processing scheme involves performing header stripping, and performing packet transmission to one of a plurality of instrument ports at the network switch appliance after the header stripping, each of the instrument ports configured for communicatively coupling to a network monitoring instrument, and wherein the second packet processing scheme involves performing packet transmission to one of the plurality of instrument ports at the network switch appliance without performing any header stripping.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring virtualized network, comprising:

receiving information regarding the virtualized network, wherein the information is received at a port of a network switch appliance;

receiving a packet at a network port of the network switch appliance; and

using the received information to determine whether to process the packet according to a first packet processing scheme or a second packet processing scheme;

wherein the first packet processing scheme involves performing header stripping, and performing packet transmission to one of a plurality of instrument ports at the network switch appliance after the header stripping, each of the instrument ports configured for communicatively coupling to a network monitoring instrument; and

wherein the second packet processing scheme involves performing packet transmission to one of the plurality of instrument ports at the network switch appliance without performing any header stripping.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of using the received information comprises using the information to determine whether the packet is associated with the virtualized network or not.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the packet is determined to be associated with the virtualized network, and the packet is processed according to the first packet processing scheme.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer MAC header;

the act of performing header stripping comprises removing the outer MAC header of the packet; and

the act of performing the packet transmission comprises transmitting the packet to the one of the plurality of instrument ports after the outer MAC header has been removed from the packet.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer IP header;

the act of performing header stripping comprises removing the outer IP header of the packet; and

the act of performing the packet transmission comprises transmitting the packet to the one of the plurality of instrument ports after the outer IP header has been removed from the packet.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer UDP header;

the act of performing header stripping comprises removing the outer UDP header of the packet; and

the act of performing the packet transmission comprises transmitting the packet to the one of the plurality of instrument ports after the outer UDP header has been removed from the packet.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the packet is determined not to be associated with the virtualized network, and the packet is processed according to the second packet processing scheme.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer MAC header, an outer IP header, an outer UDP header, and a VXLAN header; and

the act of performing header stripping comprises removing the outer MAC header, the outer IP header, the outer UDP header, and the VXLAN header from the packet.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the header stripping includes removing one or more tunnel headers.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more tunnel headers comprise one or more NVGRE headers.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the information comprises one or more of an identification of a virtual machine host, an identification of a virtual machine workload, and a mapping between the virtual machine host and the virtual machine workload.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the information is obtained from a data center controller, a virtual machine host, an openflow controller, a SDN controller, or a network switch.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the header stripping is performed by one or more processors configured to receive only packets with tunnel format.

14. The method of claim 1, the network switch appliance is configured to process the packet in an out-of-band configuration.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the packet transmission in the first packet processing scheme or the second packet processing scheme is performed to:

transmit the packet received at the network port to one of the plurality of instrument ports;

transmit the packet received at the network port to multiple ones of the plurality of instrument ports;

transmit the packet received at the network port and another packet received at another network port to one of the plurality of instrument ports;

or

transmit the packet received at the network port and the other packet received at the other network port to multiple ones of the plurality of instrument ports.

16. An apparatus communicatively coupled to a network that includes a virtualized network, comprising:

a port for receiving information regarding the virtualized network;

a network port for receiving a packet;

a plurality of instrument ports, each of the instrument ports configured for communicatively coupling to a network monitoring instrument; and

a processing unit configured for using the received information to determine whether to process the packet according to a first packet processing scheme or a second packet processing scheme;

wherein the first packet processing scheme involves performing header stripping, and performing packet transmission to one of the plurality of instrument ports after the header stripping; and

wherein the second packet processing scheme involves performing packet transmission to one of the plurality of instrument ports without performing any header stripping.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the processing unit is configured for using the received information to determine whether the packet is associated with the virtualized network or not.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising a processor for performing the header stripping.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer MAC header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer MAC header of the packet before the packet transmission is performed to pass the packet to the one of the plurality of instrument ports.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer IP header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer IP header of the packet before the packet transmission is performed to pass the packet to the one of the plurality of instrument ports.

21. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer UDP header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer UDP header of the packet before the packet transmission is performed to pass the packet to the one of the plurality of instrument ports.

22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the packet is not associated with the virtualized network, and the processing unit is configured to by-pass the processor.

23. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein:

the packet comprises an outer MAC header, an outer IP header, an outer UDP header, and a VXLAN header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer MAC header, the outer IP header, the outer UDP header, and the VXLAN header from the packet.

24. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the processor is configured to receive only packets with tunnel format.

25. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the header stripping includes removing one or more tunnel headers.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the one or more tunnel headers comprise one or more NVGRE headers.

27. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the information comprises one or more of an identification of a virtual machine host, an identification of a virtual machine workload, and a mapping between the virtual machine host and the virtual machine workload.

28. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the port is configured to receive the information from a data center controller, a virtual machine host, an openflow controller, a SDN controller, or a network switch.

29. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the apparatus is configured to process the packet in an out-of-band configuration.

30. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising a switch module for performing the packet transmission in the first packet processing scheme or the second packet processing scheme, wherein the switching module is configured to:

transmit the packet received at the network port to one of the plurality of instrument ports;

transmit the packet received at the network port to multiple ones of the plurality of instrument ports;

transmit the packet received at the network port and another packet received at another network port to one of the plurality of instrument ports;

or

transmit the packet received at the network port and the other packet received at the other network port to multiple ones of the plurality of instrument ports.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein the processing unit is a part of the switch module.

32. An apparatus communicatively coupled to a network that includes a virtualized network, comprising:

a plurality of network ports for receiving packets, the packets including a first packet having a tunnel format, and a second packet without any tunnel format;

a plurality of instrument ports, each of the instrument ports configured for communicatively coupling to a network monitoring instrument;

a switch module configured to pass the first packet and the second packet to one or more of the instrument ports; and

a processor for performing header stripping for the first packet having the tunnel format before the first packet is passed by the switch module to the one or more of the instrument ports.

33. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the processor is configured to receive and process packets with the tunnel format, and the switch module is configured to avoid passing packets without the tunnel format to the processor.

34. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein:

the first packet comprises an outer MAC header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer MAC header of the first packet.

35. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein:

the first packet comprises an outer IP header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer IP header of the first packet.

36. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein:

the first packet comprises an outer UDP header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer UDP header of the first packet.

37. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the second packet is not associated with the virtualized network, and the switch module is configured pass the second packet downstream without going through the processor.

38. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein:

the first packet comprises an outer MAC header, an outer IP header, an outer UDP header, and a VXLAN header; and

the processor is configured for performing the header stripping by removing the outer MAC header, the outer IP header, the outer UDP header, and the VXLAN header from the first packet.

39. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the processor is configured to perform header stripping by removing one or more tunnel headers.

40. The apparatus of claim 39, wherein the one or more tunnel headers comprise one or more NVGRE headers.

41. The apparatus of claim 32, further comprising a port for receiving information regarding the virtualized network.

42. The apparatus of claim 41, wherein the information comprises one or more of an identification of a virtual machine host, an identification of a virtual machine workload, and a mapping between the virtual machine host and the virtual machine workload.

43. The apparatus of claim 41, wherein the port is configured to receive the information from a data center controller, a virtual machine host, an openflow controller, a SDN controller, or a network switch.

44. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the apparatus is configured to process the packet in an out-of-band configuration.

45. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the switch module is configured to:

transmit the first packet or the second packet received at one of the networks port to one of the plurality of instrument ports in a one-to-one configuration;

transmit the first packet or the second packet received at one of the network ports to multiple ones of the plurality of instrument ports in a one-to-many configuration;

transmit the first packet or the second packet received at one of the network ports, and another packet received at another one of the network ports, to one of the plurality of instrument ports in a many-to-one configuration;

or

transmit the first packet or the second packet received at one of the network ports, and the other packet received at the other one of the network ports, to multiple ones of the plurality of instrument ports in a many-to-many configuration.

46. The apparatus of claim 32, further comprising a processing unit configured for determining whether to process the packets according to a first packet processing scheme or a second packet processing scheme;

wherein the first packet processing scheme involves using the processor to perform the header stripping; and

wherein the second packet processing scheme does not involve using the processor to perform header stripping.

47. The apparatus of claim 46, wherein the processing unit is a part of the switch module.