MIGRATING MIDDLEBOX STATE FOR DISTRIBUTED MIDDLEBOXES

• US 20130125120A1
• Filed: 11/15/2012
• Published: 05/16/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhang, Ronghua, Koponen, Teemu, Thakkar, Pankaj, Padmanabhan, Amar, Lambeth, W. Andrew, Casado, Martin
• Granted Patent: US 9,195,491 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/177 Initialisation or configuration control processor initialisation G06F9/4405
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/08 Configuration management of networks or network elements address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0803 Configuration setting
• 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 41/0823 characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability for optimising operational conditions of wireless networks H04W24/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0889 Techniques to speed-up the configuration process
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/74 Address processing for routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/15 Interconnection of switching modules
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 : Virtual switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2503 : Translation of Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2517 : using port numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/2521 : Translation architectures other than single NAT servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/256 : NAT traversal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0218 : Distributed architectures, e.g. distributed firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 : based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30

Abstract

A controller of a network control system for configuring several middlebox instances is described. The middlebox instances implement a middlebox in a distributed manner in several hosts. The controller configures, in a first host, a first middlebox instance to receive a notification from a migration module before a virtual machine (VM) running in the first host migrates to a second host and to send middlebox state related to the VM to the migration module.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine readable medium of a controller of a network control system for configuring a plurality of middlebox instances to implement a middlebox in a distributed manner in a plurality of hosts, the non-transitory machine readable medium storing a set of instructions for:

configuring, in a first host, a first middlebox instance to;

receive a notification from a migration module before a virtual machine (VM) running in the first host migrates to a second host; and

send middlebox state related to the VM to the migration module.

2. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the sets of instructions further comprise a set of instructions for:

configuring, in the second host, a second middlebox instance to;

receive the middlebox state related to the VM; and

resume a middlebox service based on the middlebox state.

3. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the migration module migrates the VM to the second host.

4. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the migration module migrates the middlebox state to the second host.

5. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the migration module is part of a hypervisor of the first host.

6. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a distributed middlebox application for execution by at least one processing unit of a host machine, the host machine comprising a migration module that migrates a virtual machine (VM) to another host machine, the program comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving a notification from the migration module before the migration module migrates the VM to the other host machine;

identifying middlebox state that relates to the VM; and

supplying the identified middlebox state to the migration module.

7. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 6, wherein the distributed middlebox application at least partially implements a logical middlebox that is part of a logical network.

8. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 7, wherein the logical network includes a set of logical forwarding elements that are implemented in a plurality of managed switching elements.

9. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 8, wherein a managed switching element is running in the hosted machine.

10. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 6, wherein the migration module subsequently migrates the middlebox state to the other host machine.

11. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 6, wherein the migration module is part of a hypervisor of the host machine.

12. A non-transitory machine readable medium of a first controller of a network control system for configuring a plurality of middlebox instances to implement a middlebox in a distributed manner in a plurality of hosts, the network control system comprising a plurality of controllers, the non-transitory machine readable medium storing sets of instructions for:

receiving configuration data for configuring, in a first host, a middlebox instance to migrate middlebox state of a virtual machine (VM) to a second host when the VM migrates from the first host to the second host;

identifying a set of other controllers in the network control system that manage the middlebox instance; and

directing the identified set of other controllers to send the configuration data to the middlebox instance.

13. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 12, wherein the configuration data include a set of instructions for receiving a notification from a migration module of the first host.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the configuration data include a set of instructions for identifying middlebox states that relates to the VM.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the configuration data include a set of instructions for supplying the identified middlebox state to the migration module.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein the network control system is for generating physical control plane data for managing first and second managed forwarding elements that implement forwarding operations associated with a first logical datapath set, wherein the sets of instructions further comprise a set of instructions for converting logical control plane data for the first logical datapath set to universal physical control plane data.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 16, wherein the first controller is a master controller for the first logical datapath set, wherein each of the identified set of other controllers is a master controller for a set of managed forwarding element that are hosted together with the middlebox instances.

18. A non-transitory machine readable medium of a controller of a network control system for configuring a plurality of middlebox instances to implement a middlebox in a distributed manner in a plurality of hosts, the non-transitory machine readable medium storing a set of instructions for:

configuring, in a first host, a first middlebox instance to;

share a first middlebox state with a second middlebox instance that is configured in a second host; and

send a second middlebox state to a migration module of the first host that subsequently migrates the second middlebox state,

wherein the first middlebox state and the second middlebox state relate to a virtual machine (VM) that is running in the first host.

19. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein the migration module migrates the VM to the second host.

20. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein the first middlebox state and the second middlebox state do not overlap.