SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPROVING TCP PERFORMANCE IN VIRTUALIZED ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20150085665A1
• Filed: 05/29/2014
• Published: 03/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Juniper Networks Incorporated
• Original Assignee: AppFormix Inc. (Juniper Networks Incorporated)
• Inventors: Singh, Sumeet, Kompella, Ramana
• Granted Patent: US 9,385,959 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/236
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/193 at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/20 Traffic policing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2475 for supporting traffic characterised by the type of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2483 involving identification of individual flows
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/27 Evaluation or update of window size, e.g. using information derived from acknowledged [ACK] packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/28 in relation to timing considerations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields

Abstract

Example embodiments described herein provide systems and methods for transmitting data packets between a protocol sender and a protocol receiver in a cloud environment, having either the protocol sender or the protocol receiver residing within a virtualized host. A protocol acceleration module may observe the data packets transmitted along the data path between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver using protocol stack configuration information of the protocol sender. The protocol acceleration module may override the protocol stack configuration information with policy-based protocol stack configuration information such that data packets transmitted from the protocol acceleration module to the protocol receiver use the policy-based protocol stack configuration information. For various embodiments, the protocol stack configuration information of the protocol sender is not modified.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

observing one of a plurality of data flows for transmitting a plurality of data packets between a protocol sender and a protocol receiver using TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender, wherein at least one of the protocol sender and the protocol receiver resides within a virtualized host;

identifying, using a processor of a machine, policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows;

overriding, between a protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver, the TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender with the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows identified; and

transmitting the one of the plurality of data flows identified using the TCP stack configuration information of the sender between the protocol sender and the protocol acceleration module, and using the policy-based TCP stack configuration information between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein overriding, between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver, the TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender with the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows identified further comprising:

overriding, between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver, the TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender with the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows identified without changing the TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the plurality of data flows represents flow classification information for organizing the plurality of data packets with different characteristics into different classes using certain criteria.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the flow classification information may classify one or more of the plurality of data packets according to particular applications.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, by the protocol acceleration module, diagnostic information related to TCP performance of the data packets transmitted between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver; and

transmitting the diagnostic information to a management interface.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the diagnostic information includes measurement information from one or more portions of a data path:

between the protocol sender and the protocol acceleration module; and

between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the diagnostic information includes one or more TCP connection characteristics.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving, from a management interface, the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the plurality of data flows; and

storing the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the plurality of data flows.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

receiving, from the management interface, adjusted policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows, the one of the plurality of data flows having corresponding classifier information, the adjusted policy-based TCP stack configuration information adjusted based on the diagnostic information.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

wherein storing the policy-based TCP stack configuration information further comprises storing the policy-based TCP stack configuration information within the protocol acceleration module, the policy-based TCP stack configuration information stored in a flow table;

wherein observing the one of the plurality of data flows further comprises observing, by the protocol acceleration module, the one of the plurality of data flows; and

wherein identifying, using the processor of the machine, the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows further comprises identifying, by the protocol acceleration module, the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows.

11. A method, comprising:

creating policy-based TCP stack configuration information for a plurality of data flows for transmitting a plurality of data packets between a protocol sender and a protocol receiver over a portion of a data path between a protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver without modifying TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender, wherein at least one of the protocol sender and the protocol receiver resides within a virtualized host; and

providing the policy-based TCP stack configuration information to at least one protocol acceleration module.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein creating the policy-based TCP stack configuration information comprises:

adjusting one or more TCP stack configuration values included within the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for at least one data flow in the plurality of data flows.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein adjusting the one or more TCP stack configuration values included within the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for at the least one data flow in the plurality of data flows comprises:

adjusting one or more TCP header field values included within the one or more TCP stack configuration values.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein adjusting the one or more TCP stack configuration values included within the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the at least one data flow in the plurality of data flows comprises:

adjusting the one or more TCP stack configuration values for the at least one data flow in the plurality of data flows one or more times before a connection is established between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver, or during the established connection between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein adjusting the one or more TCP stack configuration values included within the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the at least one data flow in the plurality of data flows comprises:

adjusting the one or more TCP stack configuration values for the at least one data flow in the plurality of data flows to transfer a predetermined amount of data during a connection between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein adjusting the one or more TCP stack configuration values included within the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the at least one data flow in the plurality of data flows comprises:

adjusting the one or more TCP stack configuration values for the at least one data flow in the plurality of data flows to transfer the plurality of data packets during a predetermined amount of time during a connection between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein creating the policy-based TCP stack configuration information comprises:

adjusting one or more TCP stack configuration values on a per-flow basis.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein creating the policy-based TCP stack configuration information comprises:

creating the policy-based TCP stack configuration information to modify behavior of TCP protocols of the plurality of data flows for a plurality of virtual machines.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein providing the policy-based TCP stack configuration information to the at least one protocol acceleration module further comprises:

configuring at least one of the virtual machines with the policy-based TCP stack configuration information created from a centralized management interface.

20. The method of claim 12, wherein creating the policy-based TCP stack configuration information further comprises:

creating flow classifiers having classifier information, the classifier information representing a set of data packet matching rules.

21. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving, from the protocol acceleration module, diagnostic information related to TCP performance of the plurality of data packets corresponding to one of the plurality of data flows transmitted between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver;

adjusting the policy-based TCP stack configuration information based on the diagnostic information; and

providing the adjusted policy-based TCP stack configuration information to the protocol acceleration module.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the diagnostic information includes measurement information from one or more portions of the data path:

between the protocol sender and the protocol acceleration module; and

between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the diagnostic information includes one or more TCP connection characteristics.

24. A system comprising:

a processor of a machine;

an observer module configured to observe one of a plurality of data flows for transmitting a plurality of data packets between a protocol sender and a protocol receiver using policy-based TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender, wherein at least one of the protocol sender and the protocol receiver resides within a virtualized host;

a data flow identification module configured to identify, using the processor of the machine, the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows;

a protocol override module configured to override, between a protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver, the policy-based TCP stack configuration of the protocol sender with the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows identified; and

a transmitter module configured to transmit the one of the plurality of data flows identified using the policy-based TCP stack configuration of the protocol sender between the protocol sender and the protocol acceleration module, and using the policy-based TCP stack configuration information between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver.

25. The system of claim 24, further comprising:

a monitoring module configured to diagnose information related to TCP performance of the one of the plurality of data flows transmitting the plurality of data packets between the protocol sender and the protocol receiver.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the diagnostic information includes measurement information from one or more portions of a data path:

between the protocol sender and the protocol acceleration module; and

between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver.

27. The system of claim 25, wherein the diagnostic information includes one or more TCP connection characteristics.

28. The system of claim 24, further comprising:

a management interface configured to create the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the plurality of data flows.

29. A system comprising:

a processor of a machine;

a protocol configuration module configured to create, using the processor of the machine, policy-based TCP stack configuration information for a plurality of data flows for transmitting a plurality of data packets between a protocol sender and a protocol receiver over a portion of a data path between a protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver without modifying TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender, wherein at least one of the protocol sender and the protocol receiver resides within a virtualized host; and

a transmitting module configured to provide the policy-based TCP stack configuration information to at least one protocol acceleration module.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein at least one of the protocol configuration module and the transmitting module is included within a management interface.

31. The system of claim 29, wherein the protocol configuration module is configured to create the policy-based TCP stack configuration information to modify behavior of TCP protocols of the plurality of data flows for a plurality of virtual machines.

32. The system of claim 30, wherein the management interface is configured to configure at least one of a plurality of virtual machines with the policy-based TCP stack configuration information.

33. A tangible machine-readable storage medium having no transitory signals, and embodying instructions that, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

observing one of a plurality of data flows used to transmit a plurality of data packets between a protocol sender and a protocol receiver using TCP stack configuration information of the protocol sender, the one of the plurality of data flows including transmitting one or more data packets, wherein at least one of the protocol sender and the protocol receiver resides within a virtualized host;

identifying, using a processor of a machine, policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows;

overriding, between a protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver, the policy-based TCP stack configuration of the protocol sender with the policy-based TCP stack configuration information for the one of the plurality of data flows identified; and

transmitting the one of the plurality of data flows identified using the policy-based TCP stack configuration of the sender between the protocol sender and the protocol acceleration module, and using the policy-based TCP stack configuration information between the protocol acceleration module and the protocol receiver.