Enabling uniform switch management in virtual infrastructure

• US 9,875,127 B2
• Filed: 08/23/2014
• Issued: 01/23/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Thakkar, Sachin, Su, ChiHsiang, Yu, Jia, Kothari, Piyush, Nipane, Nilesh Ramchandra
• Primary Examiner(s): Salad, Abdullahi E
• Application Number:
  US14/466,996
• Publication Number:
  US 20160057005A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,249 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1484 involving virtual machines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2033 switching over of hardware resources
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2035 without idle spare hardware
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0813 characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0886 Fully automatic configuration
• 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 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches

Abstract

A method of configuring a logical network in a datacenter is provided. The datacenter includes a plurality of host physical computing devices, a compute manager to configure one or more data compute nodes (DCNs) on virtualization software of each host, and a network manager. The method configures, by the network manager, a logical network. the method provides, by the network manager, a read-only configuration construct of the logical network to the virtualization software of a set of hosts in the plurality of hosts. The method obtains, by the compute manager, the read-only configuration construct of the logical network from the virtualization software of the set of hosts. The method configures, by the compute manager, a plurality of DCNs to connect to the logical network using the read only configuration construct of the logical network.

Claims

1. For a datacenter comprising (i) a plurality of physical host computing devices, (ii) a compute manager, and (iii) a network manager, a method of configuring a logical network, the method comprising:

configuring, by the compute manager, one or more data compute nodes (DCNs) to execute on the plurality of physical hosts, with at least two or more DCNs executing on each of a set of physical hosts;

defining the logical network at the network manager;

providing, from the network manager, read-only configuration information for the logical network to virtualization software of the set of physical hosts;

obtaining, at the compute manager, the read-only configuration information for the logical network from the virtualization software of the set of physical hosts; and

configuring, by the compute manager, the DCNs to connect to the logical network using the read-only configuration information for the logical network, without modifying the logical network, wherein said compute manager manages the DCNs while the network manager does not manage the DCNs.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the logical network provides open systems interconnection (OSI) model layer 2 (L2) connections among the DCNs connected to the logical network.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

by the network manager, configuring a logical forwarding element (LFE) to perform open systems interconnection (OSI) model layer 3 (L3) packet forwarding between DCNs executing on one or more physical hosts,

wherein configuring the DCNs to connect to the logical network comprises configuring the DCNs to connect to the LFE.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

by the network manager, configuring a transport zone associated with the logical network, the transport zone identifying a particular section of the logical network;

by the network manager, connecting a physical host in the set of physical hosts to the transport zone; and

by the network manager, providing read-only configuration information for the LFE comprising a unique identifier of the transport zone to the virtualization software of the set of physical hosts.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the read-only configuration information for the logical network comprises a set of parameters comprising a unique identification of the transport zone, the method further comprising identifying, by the compute manager, the set of physical hosts as hosts connected to the transport zone using the unique identification of the transport zone, wherein configuring the DCNs to connect to the network comprises utilizing the unique identification of the transport zone to connect the DCNs to the LFE.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the read-only configuration information for the LFE further comprises a list of physical network interface controllers (PNICs) connected to the LFE.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the read-only configuration information comprises a set of parameters comprising a unique identification of the logical network and a type of the logical network.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the unique identification of the logical network is a universal unique identification (UUID) of the logical network, wherein the type of network identifies a format of packets communicated in the network.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

by the compute manager, determining that a first DCN executing on a first physical host is connected to the logical network using the read-only configuration information for the logical network;

by the compute manager, determining that a second physical host is connected to the logical network using the read-only configuration information for the logical network; and

by the compute manager, deploying a shadow of the first DCN on the second physical host to make the first DCN a fault tolerant DCN.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

by the compute manager, receiving an indication that the first physical host has failed; and

by the compute manager, configuring the shadow DCN on the second physical host to replace functionalities of the first DCN.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a DCN is a virtual machine (VM).

12. A system comprising:

a plurality of physical host computing devices;

a compute manager to;

configure one or more data compute nodes (DCNs) to execute on the plurality of physical hosts, with at least two or more DCNs executing on each of a set of physical hosts; and

a network manager to;

define a logical network and

provide read-only configuration information for the logical network to virtualization software of the set of physical hosts,

wherein the compute manager is further configured

to obtain the read-only configuration information for the logical network from the virtualization software of the set of physical hosts and

to configure the DCNs to connect to the logical network using the read-only configuration information for the logical network, without modifying the logical network, and

wherein the network manager does not manage the DCNs.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the logical network provides open systems interconnection (OSI) model layer 2 (L2) connections among the DCNs connected to the logical network.

14. The system of claim 12, the network manager further configured to:

configure a logical forwarding element (LFE) to perform open systems interconnection (OSI) model layer 3 (L3) packet forwarding between DCNs executing on one or more physical hosts,

wherein configuring the DCNs to connect to the logical network comprises configuring the DCNs to connect to the LFE.

15. The system of claim 14, the network manager further configured to:

configure a transport zone associated with the logical network, the transport zone identifying a particular section of the logical network;

connect a physical host in the set of physical hosts to the transport zone; and

provide read-only configuration information for the LFE comprising a unique identifier of the transport zone to the virtualization software of the set of physical hosts.

16. The system of claim 15, the read-only configuration information for the logical network comprising a set of parameters comprising a unique identification of the transport zone, the compute manager further configured to identify the set of physical hosts as hosts connected to the transport zone using the unique identification of the transport zone, wherein configuring the DCNs to connect to the network by the compute manager comprises utilizing the unique identification of the transport zone to connect the DCNs to the LFE.

17. The system of claim 15, the read-only configuration information for the LFE further comprising a list of physical network interface controllers (PNICs) connected to the LFE.

18. The system of claim 12, the read-only configuration information for the logical network comprising a set of parameters comprising a unique identification of the logical network and a type of the logical network.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the unique identification of the logical network is a universal unique identification (UUID) of the logical network, wherein the type of network identifies a format of packets communicated in the network.

20. The system of claim 12, the compute manager further configured to:

determine that a first DCN executing on a first physical host is connected to the logical network using the read-only configuration information for the logical network;

determine that a second physical host is connected to the logical network using the read-only configuration information for the logical network; and

configure and deploy a shadow of the first DCN on the second physical host to make the first DCN a fault tolerant DCN.

21. The system of claim 20, the compute manager further configured to:

receive an indication that the first physical host has failed; and

configure the shadow DCN on the second physical host to replace functionalities of the first DCN.

22. The system of claim 12, wherein a DCN is a virtual machine (VM).