Programatically provisioning virtual networks

• US 9,112,769 B1
• Filed: 12/27/2010
• Issued: 08/18/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Fitzgerald, Joseph E., Mercier, Benjamin W., Brandwine, Eric Jason, Theimer, Marvin M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Serrao, Ranodhi
• Application Number:
  US12/978,995
• Time in Patent Office: 1,695 Days
• Field of Search: 709/220, 709/223, 718/1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0897 by horizontal or vertical scaling of resources, or by migrating entities, e.g. virtual resources or entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Virtualization technologies can be adapted to allow a single physical computing machine to be shared among multiple virtual networks by providing one or more virtual machines simulated in software by the single physical computing machine, with each virtual machine acting as a distinct logical computing system. Virtual network instances with overlapping network addresses can be supported on the same computing system, allowing users to specify the virtual network in greater detail. Techniques are described for programmatically provisioning virtual networks. Each virtual network can have its own virtual address space, allowing multiple networks to have overlapping address spaces. The virtual IP addresses or other addresses for one or more components of a virtual network could share the same address but still operate without interfering with each other.

Claims

1. A method for provisioning a virtual network, the method comprising:

receiving network configuration data for a virtual network, the network configuration data including network address data for one or more network components of the virtual network;

generating, with one or more processors, a first instance of the virtual network based on the network configuration data, the first instance comprising one or more virtual network components associated with the network address data;

operating the first instance of the virtual network on a computing system;

determining that a workload of the first instance exceeded a workload threshold;

based at least in part on the determination, generating, with one or more processors, a second instance of the virtual network, wherein the second instance is configured based, at least in part, on the network configuration data, the second instance comprising one or more virtual network components associated with the network address data; and

directing work requests for the virtual network to one or more of the first instance and the at second instance of the virtual network;

wherein the network addresses of the one or more virtual network components of the first instance are identical to the network addresses of the one or more virtual network components of the second instance.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing system comprises a virtual network provisioning system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein operating the first instance comprises:

receiving a work request from a user; and

performing the requested work with the first instance of the virtual network.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the work request comprises a database operation request.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the work request comprises a web page request.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a work request from a user during operation of the first instance of the virtual network;

suspending the first instance of the virtual network; and

performing the requested work with the second instance of the virtual network.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the network address data comprise IP address data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more virtual network components of the first instance correspond to the one or more virtual network components of the second instance.

9. A system for provisioning a virtual network, the system comprising:

a data store comprising network configuration data for a virtual network comprising a plurality of virtual network components, the network configuration data comprising network topology data and network addresses for the plurality of virtual network components;

a first instance of a virtual network comprising one or more virtual network components having logical network addresses operating on a physical computing system, the logical network addresses specified by the network configuration data; and

a resource manager comprising one or more computing devices, the resource manager configured to;

determine that a workload of the first instance exceeded a workload threshold; and

generate at least one instance of the virtual network comprising virtual network components having the same logical network addresses as the first instance, wherein the at least one instance is generated based, at least in part, on the determination that the workload of the first instance exceeded the workload threshold, wherein the number of instances instantiated is based, at least in part, on the workload;

direct at least some work requests having destination network addresses corresponding to the first instance for processing by the at least one instance of the virtual network.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the resource manager is further configured to suspend operation of the first instance and direct work requests to the at least one instance instead of the first instance.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the first instance and at least one instance are operating concurrently.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the resource manager is further configured to determine to which virtual network instance to direct work requests.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the resource manager determines the virtual network instance using a work request identifier.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the resource manager determines the virtual network instance using packet information from one or more network packets comprising the work request.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the resource manager directs a work request to the determined virtual network instance using packet mangling.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the resource manager directs a work request to the determined virtual network instance using network address translation.

17. The system of claim 9, wherein the resource manager duplicates one or more work requests to the first instance and the at least one instance.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the resource manager evaluates the first instance and the at least one instance based on their performance in processing the one or more duplicated work requests.

19. The system of claim 9, wherein the resource manager is further configured to:

track one or more works requests that initially failed when performed by a virtual network instance; and

transmit the one or more failed work requests to another virtual network instance.

20. A computer-implemented method for provisioning a virtual network, the computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving network configuration data for a virtual network comprising a plurality of virtual network components, the network configuration data comprising network topology data and network addresses for the plurality of virtual network components;

instantiating, with one or more processors, a first instance of the virtual network on a virtual network provisioning system comprising the plurality of virtual network components having the network addresses specified by the network configuration data;

determining that a workload of the first instance exceeded a workload threshold;

based, at least in part, on the determination, instantiating, with one or more processors, at least one instance of the virtual network on the virtual network provisioning system, each of the at least one instances comprising the plurality of virtual network components having the network addresses specified by the network configuration data, wherein the number of instances instantiated is based, at least in part, on the workload; and

directing work requests for the virtual network to one or more of the first instance and the at least one instance of the virtual network.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the multiple instances are operating concurrently.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the multiple instances are instantiated at different times.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein one or more of the multiple instances are inactive.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein the multiple instances are operating more than one version of an application.

25. The method of claim 20, wherein directing work request comprises using a selection process enabling progressively increasing work requests to newly generated virtual network instances.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein the network topology data and network addresses are specified by a user.

27. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed, direct a computing system to perform a method of computing resource allocation, the method comprising:

generating, with one or more processors, a first virtual network instance based on network configuration data from a first user, the network configuration data comprising user-specified first network component selections and user-specified first network addresses for said first network components, the first virtual network instance operating on a computing system;

determining that a workload of the first instance satisfied a workload threshold;

based at least in part on the determination, generating, with one or more processors, a second virtual network instance, wherein the second virtual network instance is configured based, at least in part, on the network configuration data from a second user, the network configuration data comprising user-specified second network component selections and user-specified second network addresses for said second network components, the second virtual network instance operating on the computing system; and

directing work requests to one or more of the first virtual network instance and the at second virtual network instance;

wherein network components of the first virtual network instance and the second virtual network instance share the same network address.

28. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, further comprising determining whether to route a packet addressed for the shared network address to the first network component or the second network component.

29. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein the network address is an IP address.

30. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein the computing system is a data center.

31. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein the first virtual network instance is associated with a first network identifier and the second virtual network instance is associated with a second network identifier.