Using virtual networking devices to manage routing communications between connected computer networks

• US 9,577,876 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2015
• Issued: 02/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Miller, Kevin Christopher, Brandwine, Eric Jason, Doane, Andrew J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dinh, Khanh
• Application Number:
  US14/825,006
• Publication Number:
  US 20150350012A1
• Time in Patent Office: 559 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/220, 709/228
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0803 Configuration setting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/122 of virtualised topologies, e.g. software-defined networks [SDN] or network function virtualisation [NFV]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Techniques are described for providing managed virtual computer networks whose configured logical network topology may have one or more virtual networking devices, such as by a network-accessible configurable network service, with corresponding networking functionality provided for communications between multiple computing nodes of a virtual computer network by emulating functionality that would be provided by the networking devices if they were physically present. The networking functionality provided for a managed computer network may include supporting a connection between that managed computer network and one or more other managed computer networks, such as via a provided virtual peering router to which each of the managed computer networks may connect, with the functionality of the virtual peering router being emulated by modules of the configurable network service without physically providing the virtual peering router, including to manage routing communications between the inter-connected managed computer networks in accordance with client-specified configuration information.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored contents that cause one or more computing systems providing a configurable network service to at least:

provide, by the one or more computing systems, a first virtual computer network having multiple computing nodes for a client of the configurable network service, including configuring the one or more computing systems to store mapping information about the multiple computing nodes, and using the mapping information to forward communications between the multiple computing nodes;

connect, by the one or more computing systems, the first virtual computer network to a second virtual computer network provided by the configurable network service via a virtual peering router provided by the configurable network service;

update, by the one or more computing systems and in response to a message from at least one computing node of the first virtual computer network related to information about one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network, the stored mapping information to include additional information about the one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network; and

forward, by the one or more computing systems and based on the updated mapping information, one or more additional communications that are received from the at least one computing node to the one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the connecting of the first virtual computer network to the second virtual computer network includes establishing a first logical connection to the virtual peering router from a first virtual router device of the first virtual computer network, and wherein the forwarding of the communications and the forwarding of the one or more additional communications includes emulating functionality of the first virtual router device.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 2 wherein the connecting of the first virtual computer network to the second virtual computer network further includes establishing a second logical connection to the virtual peering router from a second virtual router device of the second virtual computer network, and wherein the forwarding of the one or more additional communications further includes emulating functionality of the second virtual router device and of the virtual peering router.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the updating of the mapping information includes receiving, by one or more communication managers of the configurable network service that are executing on at least one computing system of the configurable network service, the information about the one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network from a system manager of the configurable network service.

5. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

providing, by a configurable network service implemented using a plurality of computing systems, a virtual computer network having multiple computing nodes for a client, including configuring one or more computing systems of the plurality that manage communications for the multiple computing nodes by storing mapping information usable to route communications for the multiple computing nodes on the one or more computing systems, and forwarding one or more communications between the multiple computing nodes using the mapping information;

connecting, by the configurable network service, the virtual computer network to a second virtual computer network provided by the configurable network service via a virtual peering router provided by the configurable network service;

updating, by the configurable network service and in response to a message from at least one computing node of the virtual computer network related to information about one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network, the mapping information stored on the one or more computing systems to include additional information about the one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network; and

forwarding, by the one or more computing systems and based on the updated mapping information, one or more additional communications that are received from the at least one computing node to the one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 wherein the updating of the mapping information is performed by the configurable network service after to the connecting and before the multiple computing nodes initiate any communications to any computing nodes of the second virtual computer network.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 wherein the configurable network service provides multiple virtual computer networks for multiple clients and includes a system manager to manage information for the multiple virtual computer networks, wherein the one or more computing systems execute one or more communication managers that manage communications for the multiple computing nodes, and wherein the updating of the mapping information includes the system manager sending the additional information to the one or more communication managers.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 wherein the configurable network service provides multiple virtual computer networks for multiple clients and includes a system manager to manage information for the multiple virtual computer networks, wherein the one or more computing systems execute one or more communication managers that manage communications for the multiple computing nodes, and wherein the updating of the mapping information further includes one or more requests from at least one of the communication managers to the system manager for the additional information.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 wherein the one or more computing systems include multiple computing systems executing multiple communication managers of the configurable network service that each manages communications for a distinct subset of the multiple computing nodes, and wherein the forwarding of the one or more communications includes emulating, by the multiple communication managers in a distributed manner, functionality of one or more virtual router devices that are specified to be part of the virtual computer network.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 wherein the emulating of the functionality of the one or more virtual router devices includes modifying headers of the one or more communications.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 wherein the one or more computing systems include multiple computing systems executing multiple communication managers of the configurable network service that each manages communications for a distinct subset of the multiple computing nodes, and wherein the forwarding of the one or more additional communications includes emulating, by the multiple communication managers in a distributed manner, functionality of the virtual peering router.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11 wherein the emulating of the functionality of the virtual peering router includes modifying headers of the one or more additional communications.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11 wherein the emulating of the functionality of the virtual peering router includes enforcing specified restrictions for the virtual peering router to control which communications are forwarded between the virtual computer network and the second virtual computer network.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 further comprising receiving, by the one or more computing systems and after the connecting, one or more further communications from the one or more computing nodes of the second virtual computer network that are intended for the at least one computing node, and providing the one or more further communications to the at least one computing node.

15. A system, comprising:

one or more hardware processors; and

one or more memories with stored instructions that, when executed by at least one of the one or more hardware processors, cause the system to implement a configurable network service that is configured to;

provide a first virtual computer network having multiple computing nodes for a client of the configurable network service, including causing one or more computing systems to host the multiple computing nodes and to store mapping information about the multiple computing nodes and to use the mapping information to forward one or more communications between the multiple computing nodes;

connect the first virtual computer network to a second virtual computer network via a virtual peering router executing on the one or more computing systems;

update, in response to a request from at least one computing node of the first virtual computer network for information about one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network, the mapping information stored by the one or more computing systems to include additional information about the one or more computing nodes; and

forward, based at least in part on the updated mapping information, one or more additional communications that are received from the at least one computing node to one or more computing nodes in the second virtual computer network.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the configurable network service provides multiple virtual computer networks for multiple clients and includes a system manager to manage information for the multiple virtual computer networks, wherein the one or more computing systems execute one or more communication managers that manage communications between the multiple computing nodes, and wherein the updating of the mapping information includes the system manager sending the additional information to the one or more communication managers.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein the connecting of the first virtual computer network to the second virtual computer network includes establishing a first logical connection to the virtual peering router from a first virtual router device of the first virtual computer network, and establishing a second logical connection to the virtual peering router from a second virtual router device of the second virtual computer network, and wherein the stored instructions further cause the system to emulate functionality of the first and second virtual router devices and of the virtual peering router as part of the forwarding of the one or more additional communications.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the emulating of the functionality of the virtual peering router includes enforcing specified restrictions for the virtual peering router to control which communications are forwarded between the first virtual computer network and the second virtual computer network.