Multi-line/multi-state virtualized OAM transponder

• US 9,898,318 B2
• Filed: 12/29/2014
• Issued: 02/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CenturyLink Intellectual Property LLC (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bugenhagen, Michael K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bullock, Jr., Lewis A
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALFRED, MELISSA A
• Application Number:
  US14/583,952
• Publication Number:
  US 20160048403A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,149 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• 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

Abstract

Novel tools and techniques might provide for implementing applications management, based at least in part on operations, administration, and management (“OAM”) information. A host computing system might comprise a dedicated OAM management agent. While normal application frame flow might be sent or received by VMs running on the host computing system, OAM frame flow might be sent or received by the OAM management agent, which might also serve as an OAM frame generator. Alternatively, or additionally, based on a determination that at least one OAM frame has changed (in response to a change in address of far-end and/or near-end OAM server functions), the OAM management agent might update a list associating the at least one OAM frame that has changed with corresponding at least one VM of the one or more VMs, without restarting any of the at least one VM, the OAM management agent, and/or the host computing system.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, with an orchestration agent running on a host computing system, one or more first operations, administration, and management (“

OAM”

) frames and one or more first state information from one or more hardware components;

sending, with the orchestration agent, the one or more first state information to one or more virtualized applications running on one or more virtual machines (“

VMs”

) that are running on the host computing system;

determining, with a VM management agent of one or more VM management agents, whether at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed in response to a change in address of at least one of far-end or near-end OAM server functions associated with a VM of the one or more VMs; and

updating, with the VM management agent, a list associating the at least one first OAM frame that has changed with corresponding at least one VM of the one or more VMs, without restarting any of the at least one VM, the VM management agent, the one or more VM management agents, or the host computing system, based on a determination that at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed; and

sending, with the orchestration agent, based on the updating, the one or more first OAM frames to one or more VM management agents that are running on the host computing system and that are separate from the one or more VMs, the one or more VM management agents being dedicated OAM management agents.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the orchestration agent is configured to perform an OAM frame mapping function, wherein sending, with the orchestration agent, the one or more first OAM frames to the one or more VM management agents comprises sending, with the orchestration agent, the one or more first OAM frames to the one or more VM management agents, using the OAM frame mapping function.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more first state information comprises OAM source and destination information, wherein receiving the one or more first OAM frames and the one or more first state information from the one or more hardware components comprises receiving, with the orchestration agent, the one or more first OAM frames and the OAM source and destination information from the one or more hardware components along a same channel through one or more interface ports of the host computing system, and passing, with the orchestration agent, the one or more first OAM frames and the OAM source and destination information, along separate, forked channels from the orchestration agent.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more first state information comprises OAM source and destination information, wherein receiving the one or more first OAM frames and the one or more first state information from the one or more hardware components comprises receiving, with the orchestration agent, the one or more first OAM frames and the OAM source and destination information from the one or more hardware components, and passing the one or more first OAM frames and the OAM source and destination information, along separate channels through one or more interface ports of the host computing system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more first OAM frames comprise at least one of one or more Ethernet OAM frames, one or more Internet protocol/multiprotocol label switching (“

IP/MPLS”

) OAM frames, one or more MPLS OAM frames, or one or more two-way active measurement protocol (“

TWAMP”

) OAM frames.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more VM management agents is configured to perform a multi-layer OAM monitoring function.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more first state information comprises port hardware information comprising one or more of loss of signal (“

LOS”

) notifications, jabber, switch monitoring (“

SMON”

) counters, remote network monitoring (“

RMON”

) counters, vendor-specific implementation of committed information rate (“

CIR”

) and extended information rate (“

EIR”

), policier or policy information, shaper information, alarm indication signal (“

AIS”

) notifications, carrier group alarm (“

CGA”

) notifications, fragmented frames, flow level statistics, maintenance entity information, functionality information, ping information, trace router information, loopback information, information on test frames, information on connectivity, information on synthetic frames, or label-switched path (“

LSP”

) OAM channel tunnel status information.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, with a VM management agent of the one or more VM management agents, at least one second OAM frame and at least one second state information, the at least one second state information comprising information associated with at least one of state of the VM management agent, state of the one or more VM management agents, state of network connectivity, or state of at least one VM of the one or more VMs;

and sending, with the VM management agent, one or more of the at least one second OAM frame or the at least one second state information to the orchestration agent.

9. A method, comprising:

generating, with a virtual machine (“

VM”

) management agent of the one or more VM management agents that are running on a host computing system and that are separate from one or more VMs on which one or more virtualized applications are being run, one or more operations, administration, and management (“

OAM”

) frames and one or more state information;

determining, with the VM management agent of one or more VM management agents, whether at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed in response to a change in address of at least one of far-end or near-end OAM server functions associated with a VM of the one or more VMs; and

updating, with the VM management agent, a list associating the at least one first OAM frame that has changed with corresponding at least one VM of the one or more VMs, without restarting any of the at least one VM, the VM management agent, the one or more VM management agents, or the host computing system, based on a determination that at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed; and

sending, with the VM management agent, based on the updating, at least one of the one or more OAM frames or the one or more state information to an orchestration agent running on the host computing system.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more state information comprises information associated with at least one of state of the VM management agent, state of the one or more VM management agents, state of network connectivity, or state of at least one VM of the one or more VMs.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more OAM frames comprise at least one of one or more Ethernet OAM frames, one or more Internet protocol/multiprotocol label switching (“

IP/MPLS”

) OAM frames, one or more MPLS OAM frames, or one or more two-way active measurement protocol (“

TWAMP”

) OAM frames.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the one or more VM management agents is configured to perform a multi-layer OAM monitoring function.

13. A method comprising:

receiving, with an orchestration agent running on a host computing system, one or more first operations, administration, and management (“

OAM”

) frames and one or more first state information from one or more hardware components;

sending, with the orchestration agent, the one or more first state information to one or more virtualized applications running on one or more virtual machines (“

VMs”

) that are running on the host computing system;

determining, with a virtual machine (“

VM”

) management agent of one or more VM management agents that are running on a host computing system and that are separate from one or more VMs on which one or more virtualized applications are being run, whether one or more operations, administration, and management (“

OAM”

) frames have changed in response to a change in address of at least one of far-end or near-end OAM server functions associated with a VM of the one or more VMs; and

updating, with the VM management agent, a list associating the one or more OAM frames that have changed with corresponding at least one VM of the one or more VMs, without restarting any of the at least one VM, the VM management agent, the one or more VM management agents, or the host computing system, based on a determination that one or more OAM frames have changed.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the one or more OAM frames comprise at least one of one or more Ethernet OAM frames, one or more Internet protocol/multiprotocol label switching (“

IP/MPLS”

) OAM frames, one or more MPLS OAM frames, or one or more two-way active measurement protocol (“

TWAMP”

) OAM frames.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein each of the one or more VM management agents is configured to perform a multi-layer OAM monitoring function.

16. A system, comprising:

a host computing system, said host computing system comprising one or more processors, one or more hardware components, and a non-transitory computer readable medium having encoded thereon a set of instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more hardware components to perform one or more operations, the set of instructions comprising;

instructions for receiving one or more operations, administration, and management (“

OAM”

) frames and one or more state information from the one or more hardware components;

instructions for sending the one or more state information to one or more virtualized applications running on one or more virtual machines (“

VMs”

) that are running on the host computing system;

instructions for determining, with a VM management agent of one or more VM management agents, whether at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed in response to a change in address of at least one of far-end or near-end OAM server functions associated with a VM of the one or more VMs; and

instructions for updating, with the VM management agent, a list associating the at least one first OAM frame that has changed with corresponding at least one VM of the one or more VMs, without restarting any of the at least one VM, the VM management agent, the one or more VM management agents, or the host computing system, based on a determination that at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed; and

instructions for sending, based on the updating, the one or more OAM frames to one or more VM management agents that are running on the host computing system and that are separate from the one or more VMs, the one or more VM management agents being dedicated OAM management agents.

17. A system, comprising:

a host computing system, said host computing system comprising one or more processors, one or more hardware components, and a non-transitory computer readable medium having encoded thereon a set of instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the one or more hardware components to perform one or more operations, the set of instructions comprising;

instructions for generating one or more operations, administration, and management (“

OAM”

) frames and one or more state information associated with a virtual machine (“

VM”

) management agent that is running on a host computing system and that is separate from one or more VMs on which one or more virtualized applications are being run;

instructions for determining, with a VM management agent of one or more VM management agents, whether at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed in response to a change in address of at least one of far-end or near-end OAM server functions associated with a VM of the one or more VMs; and

instructions for updating, with the VM management agent, a list associating the at least one first OAM frame that has changed with corresponding at least one VM of the one or more VMs, without restarting any of the at least one VM, the VM management agent, the one or more VM management agents, or the host computing system, based on a determination that at least one first OAM frame of the one or more first OAM frames has changed; and

instructions for sending, based on the updating, at least one of the one or more OAM frames or the one or more state information to an orchestration agent running on the host computing system.