SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPLEMENTING AND MANAGING VIRTUAL NETWORKS

• US 20140195666A1
• Filed: 08/06/2012
• Published: 07/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mido Holdings Ltd. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Midokura SARL (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Mandelson, Jacob L., Dumitriu, Dan Mihai, Lenglet, Romain F.V., De Candia, Giuseppa
• Granted Patent: US 9,900,224 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4625 Single bridge functionality, e.g. connection of two networks over a single bridge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/55 Testing of service level quality, e.g. simulating service usage
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches

Abstract

A system and method for implementing and management virtual networks is disclosed. A method includes receiving a network packet arriving at a first network interface of a first node of an underlying network, communicating at least the packet and an identifier of the first network interface to a decision engine, determining how the packet should be processed based on a simulation by the decision engine of a traversal of a virtual network topology including a plurality of virtual network devices, wherein the decision engine communicates with a shared database accessible from the underlying network that stores the virtual network topology and virtual device configurations for the plurality of virtual network devices; and processing the packet based upon the simulation.

Claims

1. A computing method comprising:

receiving a network packet arriving at a first network interface of a first node of an underlying network, the underlying network comprising a plurality of interconnected nodes,

communicating at least the packet and an identifier of the first network interface to a decision engine,

determining how the packet should be processed based on a simulation by the decision engine of a traversal of a virtual network topology including a plurality of virtual network devices, wherein the decision engine communicates with a shared database accessible from the underlying network that stores the virtual network topology and virtual device configurations for the plurality of virtual network devices; and

processing the packet based upon the simulation.

2. The computing method of claim 1, wherein each node of the underlying network is configured to run the decision engine to perform the simulation to determine how a packet arriving at the node should be processed.

3. The computing method of claim 1, wherein determining how the packet should be processed includes determining a packet protocol header pattern associated with a result of the simulation by the decision engine for the packet, the method further comprising:

storing the packet protocol header pattern and the result of the simulation for the packet,

receiving a second packet at the first node of the underlying network,

comparing the second packet to the packet protocol header pattern,

if the second packet matches the packet protocol header pattern, determining how the second packet should be processed by retrieving the stored result of the simulation for the packet, and

processing the second packet based on the retrieved result of the simulation by the decision engine for the packet.

4. The computing method of claim 3, wherein the packet includes a protocol header having a plurality of fields, and wherein determining the packet protocol header pattern includes identifying each of the fields of the protocol header that were read during the simulation by the decision engine of the traversal of the virtual network topology including by the plurality of virtual network devices.

5. The computing method of claim 4, wherein the packet protocol header includes a wildcard for any field of the protocol header that was not read during the simulation by the decision engine.

6. The computing method of claim 1, wherein the packet includes a protocol header, wherein the simulation further includes determining modifications to the packet'"'"'s protocol header as the packet would be emitted by a virtual network device, and wherein processing the packet includes applying the determined modification to the packet'"'"'s protocol header.

7. The computing method of claim 1 further comprising:

wherein determining how the packet should be processed includes determining that the packet should be emitted from a second network interface of the first node of the underlying network, and

wherein processing the packet includes emitting the packet from the second network interface.

8. The computing method of claim 1 further comprising:

wherein determining how the packet should be processed includes determining that the packet should be emitted from a second network interface of a second node of the underlying network, and

wherein processing the packet includes delivering the packet to the second node of the underlying network and emitting the packet from the second network interface.

9. The computing method of claim 8 further comprising:

wherein determining how the packet should be processed includes determining how the packet'"'"'s protocol headers should be modified before delivery to the second node of the underlying network.

10. The computing method of claim 8 further comprising:

wherein processing the packet includes forwarding the packet from the first node to the second node as a payload of a tunneling protocol packet having a tunnel key, wherein the tunnel key encodes a global identifier of the second network interface.

11. The computing method of claim 10 further comprising:

emitting the packet from the second network interface without invoking the decision engine on the second node of the underlying network.

12. The computing method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining that the packet should be emitted from a set of network interfaces corresponding to an interface set identifier, wherein at least a portion of the network interfaces are located on a second node of the underlying network,

wherein processing the packet includes delivering the packet to each network interface in the set of network interfaces that are local to the first node, and forwarding the packet from the first node to the second node as the payload of a tunneling protocol packet using a tunnel key that encodes the interface set identifier.

13. The computing method of claim 10, wherein the underlying network supports multicasting, the method further comprising:

mapping each interface set identifier to a multicast address,

maintaining, for each node of the underlying network, a multicast subscription for each of the interface set identifiers to which at least one network interface of the node belongs, and

multicasting the packet as the payload of the tunneling protocol packet to at least the second node, and

for each node, emitting the packet from any network interfaces corresponding to the interface set that are local to that node.

14. The computing method of claim 10, wherein the underlying network does not support multicasting, the method further comprising:

determining a set of underlying network nodes that have local network interfaces that belong to the set of network interfaces,

forwarding the packet from the first node to each node in the set of underlying network nodes, and

for each node, emitting the packet from any network interfaces corresponding to the interface set that are local to that node.

15-70. -70. (canceled)

71. A computing system comprising:

a plurality of nodes interconnected by an underlying network, wherein each node includes one or more network interfaces,

a plurality of virtual devices operable on the plurality of nodes, each virtual device having a plurality of virtual ports, wherein each virtual port corresponds to one of an exterior facing port associated with one of the network interfaces of the nodes of the underlying network, or an interior facing port associated with a virtual link between virtual network devices,

a shared database storing a virtual network topology including a configuration of the virtual ports and the virtual devices, and

a decision engine operable to simulate a network packet'"'"'s traversal of the virtual network topology from a first virtual device to a last virtual device, determine a protocol header modification to be applied to the network packet to match the packet as emitted from the last virtual device, and apply the determined protocol header modifications to subsequent packets matching a packet protocol header pattern associated with the protocol header modifications.

72. The computing system of claim 71, wherein the decision engine is further operable to simulate a MAC-learning bridge and update a MAC-learning table for each MAC-learning bridge in the shared database.

73. The computing system of claim 71, wherein the decision engine is further operable to identify IP packets and extract a source IP address and a source MAC address of an encapsulating Ethernet frame, and update an ARP cache of an virtual bridge to associate the identified IP address and MAC address.

74. The computing system of claim 71, wherein the decision engine is further configured to simulate at least one of an ingress filter and an egress filter of at least one virtual device, wherein each filter includes filtering rules to be applied to packets matching a specified condition.

75. The computing system of claim 71, wherein the decision engine is further configured to simulate a network address translation for at least one of the virtual devices and store the network address translation of both a forward flow and a reverse flow in the shared database.

76. The computing system of claim 71, wherein the decision engine is further configured to dynamically assign an IP address from a DHCP resource and store the assigned IP address in the shared database.