THREE TIERS OF SAAS PROVIDERS FOR DEPLOYING COMPUTE AND NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE PUBLIC CLOUD

• US 20190104035A1
• Filed: 11/15/2018
• Published: 04/04/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cidon, Israel, Venugopal, Prashanth, Bergman, Aran, Dar, Chen, Markuze, Alex
• Granted Patent: US 10,999,165 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1432 Metric aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1446 inter-operator billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4641 Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2212/00 Encapsulation of packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5006 Creating or negotiating SLA contracts, guarantees or penalties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/20 the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/036 Updating the topology between route computation elements, e.g. between OpenFlow controllers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/037 Routes obligatorily traversing service-related nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/04 Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/586 of virtual routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/00 Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/51 : for resellers, retailers or service providers

Abstract

Some embodiments establish for an entity a virtual network over several public clouds of several public cloud providers and/or in several regions. In some embodiments, the virtual network is an overlay network that spans across several public clouds to interconnect one or more private networks (e.g., networks within branches, divisions, departments of the entity or their associated datacenters), mobile users, and SaaS (Software as a Service) provider machines, and other web applications of the entity. The virtual network in some embodiments can be configured to optimize the routing of the entity'"'"'s data messages to their destinations for best end-to-end performance, reliability and security, while trying to minimize the routing of this traffic through the Internet. Also, the virtual network in some embodiments can be configured to optimize the layer 4 processing of the data message flows passing through the network.

Claims

1. A system with three tier of SaaS providers for deploying compute and network resources in a plurality of public clouds, the system comprising:

at least two different public cloud providers to provide compute machines and network elements to connect the compute machines in at least two different public cloud datacenters;

a virtual network provider (VNP) to deploy at least two different virtual networks that each spans two different public cloud datacenters of two different public cloud providers; and

a compute and network provider (CNP) to deploy compute machines in the different public cloud datacenters for each of a plurality of tenants and to deploy virtual networks that span the different public cloud datacenters for each tenant,

wherein the three different providers are three different entities.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein

the tenants are entities that interact with CNP, and

the CNP provides a set of credentials to the VNP to use to deploy the virtual networks with the different public cloud providers on behalf of the CNP.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein

the public cloud providers send billing reports to the CNP for resources consumed by the CNP on behalf of the CNP'"'"'s tenants,

the VNP sends billing reports to the CNP for using resources of the VNP to deploy virtual networks, and

the CNP sends billing reports to the CNP tenants for the compute and network resources that the CNP deploys through the public cloud providers and the VNP.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the VNP deploys and configures managed forwarding elements (MFEs) in the different public cloud datacenters of the different public cloud providers to define different virtual networks.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein

the VNP configures a set of measurement agents in a plurality of public cloud datacenters to obtain measurements regarding connections between the plurality of public cloud datacenters;

the VNP defines, based on the obtained measurements, virtual-network routes through MFEs deployed in the plurality of public cloud datacenters, and distributes the routes to the MFEs to configure these elements to implement the virtual network.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the measurements include measurements that quantify at least one of data message throughput speeds of the connections, data message loss values, and delay values of the connections.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the VNP has a set of controllers to aggregate said measurements, and based on the aggregated measurements, to define the virtual-network routes.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the virtual-network routes are overlay routes established by encapsulating data messages traversing these routes with encapsulation headers that store network addresses for ingress and egress forwarding elements for entering and exiting the virtual network and network addresses of next hop forwarding elements for identifying next hop destinations for traversing the virtual network.

9. The system of claim 4, wherein

the MFEs are a first set of MFEs that the VNP deploys for the CNP, and

the VNP deploys another set of MFEs for another CNP to connect the compute machines that the other CNP deploys in datacenters of the public cloud providers for the other CNP'"'"'s tenants.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein each of at least two deployed virtual networks is a virtual wide area network (WAN) that connects machines at multiple different machine locations of a tenant of the CNP, said locations including at least two of an office location, a datacenter location, a remote device location, and a SaaS (Software as a Service) provider location.

11. A method for deploying compute and network resources in a plurality of public clouds, the method comprising:

using at least two different public cloud providers to provide compute machines and network elements to connect the compute machines in at least two different public cloud datacenters;

using a virtual network provider (VNP) to deploy at least two different virtual networks that each spans two different public cloud datacenters of two different public cloud providers; and

using a compute and network provider (CNP) to deploy compute machines in the different public cloud datacenters for each of a plurality of tenants and to deploy virtual networks that span the different public cloud datacenters for each tenant,

wherein the three different providers are three different entities.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein

the tenants are entities that interact with CNP, and

the CNP provides a set of credentials to the VNP to use to deploy the virtual networks with the different public cloud providers on behalf of the CNP.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein

the public cloud providers send billing reports to the CNP for resources consumed by the CNP on behalf of the CNP'"'"'s tenants,

the VNP sends billing reports to the CNP for using resources of the VNP to deploy virtual networks, and

the CNP sends billing reports to the CNP tenants for the compute and network resources that the CNP deploys through the public cloud providers and the VNP.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the VNP deploys and configures managed forwarding elements (MFEs) in the different public cloud datacenters of the different public cloud providers to define different virtual networks.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein

the VNP configures a set of measurement agents in a plurality of public cloud datacenters to obtain measurements regarding connections between the plurality of public cloud datacenters;

the VNP defines, based on the obtained measurements, virtual-network routes through MFEs deployed in the plurality of public cloud datacenters, and distributes the routes to the MFEs to configure these elements to implement the virtual network.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the measurements include measurements that quantify at least one of data message throughput speeds of the connections, data message loss values, and delay values of the connections.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the VNP has a set of controllers to aggregate said measurements, and based on the aggregated measurements, to define the virtual-network routes.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the virtual-network routes are overlay routes established by encapsulating data messages traversing these routes with encapsulation headers that store network addresses for ingress and egress forwarding elements for entering and exiting the virtual network and network addresses of next hop forwarding elements for identifying next hop destinations for traversing the virtual network.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein

the MFEs are a first set of MFEs that the VNP deploys for the CNP, and

the VNP deploys another set of MFEs for another CNP to connect the compute machines that the other CNP deploys in datacenters of the public cloud providers for the other CNP'"'"'s tenants.

20. The method of claim 11, wherein each of at least two deployed virtual networks is a virtual wide area network (WAN) that connects machines at multiple different machine locations of a tenant of the CNP, said locations including at least two of an office location, a datacenter location, a remote device location, and a SaaS (Software as a Service) provider location.