METHODS AND SYSTEMS TO OFFLOAD OVERLAY NETWORK PACKET ENCAPSULATION TO HARDWARE

• US 20170295033A1
• Filed: 06/26/2017
• Published: 10/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cherian, Shoby, Narahari Venkata, Raghavendra Subbarao, Ingale, Tanuja
• Granted Patent: US 10,142,127 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/4629 using multilayer switching, e.g. layer 3 switching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/354 for supporting virtual local area networks [VLAN]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/9068 in the network interface card
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/103 across network layers, e.g. resolution of network layer into physical layer addresses or address resolution protocol [ARP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

A method for offloading packet encapsulation for an overlay network is provided. The method, at a virtualization software of a host, sends a mapping table of the overlay network to a physical network interface controller (NIC) associated with the host. The mapping table maps the identification of each of a set of virtual machine (VM) of a tenant on the host to an identification of a tunnel on the overlay network. The method, at the virtualization software, receives a packet from a VM of the tenant. The method sends the packet to the physical NIC. The method, at the physical NIC, encapsulates the packet for transmission over the overlay network by using the mapping table. The method of claim also tags the packet by the virtualization software as a packet that requires encapsulation for transmission in the overlay network prior to sending the packet to the physical NIC.

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for offloading packet encapsulation for an overlay network, the program for execution by at least one processing unit of a host machine, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

sending a mapping table of the overlay network to a physical network interface controller (PNIC) of the host machine, the mapping table associating at least one tunnel endpoint of the overlay network with each data compute node (DCN) of a set of DCNs executing on the host machine;

determining that overlay network encapsulation of a packet received from a DCN on the host machine should be offloaded; and

associating the packet with a tag to specify that the PNIC has to perform the overlay-network packet encapsulation, wherein the PNIC receives the packet without an overlay-network encapsulation header, and encapsulates the packet with an overlay-network encapsulation header by using the mapping table to identify a tunnel endpoint based on an overlay network identifier.

22. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 21, wherein the packet is a first packet, the DCN is a first DCN, and the overlay-network encapsulation header is a first overlay-network encapsulation header, the program further comprising sets of instructions for:

determining that overlay network encapsulation of a second packet received from a second DCN on the host machine should not be offloaded; and

encapsulating the second packet with a second overlay-network encapsulation header,

wherein the PNIC receives the second packet with the second overlay-network encapsulation header.

23. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 21, wherein the program further comprises sets of instructions for:

updating the mapping table after receiving a control event in a set of control events triggering the update of the mapping table; and

sending the updated mapping table to the physical NIC.

24. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 23, wherein the set of control events comprises at least two of a DCN joining the overlay network, a DCN leaving the overlay network, a DCN migrating to the host from another host, a DCN migrating from the host to another host, and receiving incoming packets for the overlay network at the physical NIC from an entity outside of the host.

25. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 21, wherein the mapping table further associates at least one DCN to at least two different tunnel endpoints in the overlay network.

26. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 21, wherein the PNIC further uses the mapping table to remove an encapsulation header from a packet received from outside of the host machine for a DCN executing on the host machine, before the received packet is directed to the DCN.

27. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 26, wherein the encapsulated packet received from outside of the host machine comprises an identification of a source DCN sending the packet, an identification of an end of the tunnel corresponding to the source DCN, and an identification of the overlay network.

28. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 27, wherein the PNIC examines information in the received encapsulated packet, changes the mapping table based on this information, and sends the changed mapping table to the program.

29. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 28, wherein the program further comprises a set of instructions for updating the mapping table based on the changed mapping table sent by the PNIC.

30. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 21, wherein the overlay network is a virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN).

31. A method for offloading packet encapsulation for an overlay network, the method comprising:

sending a mapping table of the overlay network to a physical network interface controller (PNIC) of a host machine, the mapping table associating at least one tunnel endpoint of the overlay network with each data compute node (DCN) of a set of DCNs executing on the host machine;

determining that overlay network encapsulation of a packet received from a DCN on the host machine should be offloaded; and

associating the packet with a tag to specify that the PNIC has to perform the overlay-network packet encapsulation, wherein the PNIC receives the packet without an overlay-network encapsulation header, and encapsulates the packet with an overlay-network encapsulation header by using the mapping table to identify a tunnel endpoint based on an overlay network identifier.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the packet is a first packet, the DCN is a first DCN, and the overlay-network encapsulation header is a first overlay-network encapsulation header, the method further comprising:

determining that overlay network encapsulation of a second packet received from a second DCN on the host machine should not be offloaded; and

encapsulating the second packet with a second overlay-network encapsulation header,

wherein the PNIC receives the second packet with the second overlay-network encapsulation header.

33. The method of claim 31 further comprising:

updating the mapping table after receiving a control event in a set of control events triggering the update of the mapping table; and

sending the updated mapping table to the physical NIC.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the set of control events comprises at least two of a DCN joining the overlay network, a DCN leaving the overlay network, a DCN migrating to the host from another host, a DCN migrating from the host to another host, and receiving incoming packets for the overlay network at the physical NIC from an entity outside of the host.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein the mapping table further associates at least one DCN to at least two different tunnel endpoints in the overlay network.

36. A physical network interface controller (PNIC) for a host machine, the PNIC comprising at least one processing unit for executing at least one program for offloading packet decapsulation for an overlay network, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a mapping table of the overlay network from a first program executing on the host machine, the mapping table associating at least one tunnel endpoint of the overlay network with each data compute node (DCN) of a set of DCNs executing on the host machine;

receiving an encapsulated packet from outside of the host machine for a DCN executing on the host machine;

using the mapping table to remove an overlay-network encapsulation header from the received packet; and

passing the decapsulated packet to a second program executing on the host machine for forwarding to the DCN.

37. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 36, wherein the encapsulated packet received from outside of the host machine comprises an identification of a source DCN sending the packet, an identification of an end of the tunnel corresponding to the source DCN, and an identification of the overlay network.

38. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 37, wherein the PNIC program further comprises sets of instructions for:

examining information in the received encapsulated packet,

changing the mapping table based on this information, and

sending the changed mapping table to the first program executing on the host machine.

39. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 38, wherein the first program updates the mapping table based on the changed mapping table sent by the PNIC program.