ENABLING UNIFORM SWITCH MANAGEMENT IN VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE

• US 20160057005A1
• Filed: 08/23/2014
• Published: 02/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nicira Incorporated (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Thakkar, Sachin, Su, ChiHsiang, Yu, Jia, Kothari, Piyush, Nipane, Nilesh Ramchandra
• Granted Patent: US 9,875,127 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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. A method of configuring a logical network in a datacenter comprising 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 comprising:

configuring, by the network manager, a logical network;

providing, 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;

obtaining, by the compute manager, the read-only configuration construct of the logical network from the virtualization software of the set of hosts; and

configuring, by the compute manager, a plurality of DCNs to connect to the logical network using the read only configuration construct of the logical network.

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 on one or more hosts,

wherein configuring the plurality of DCNs to connect to the logical network comprises configuring the plurality of 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 host in the set of hosts to the transport zone; and

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

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the read-only configuration construct of 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 hosts as hosts connected to the transport zone using the unique identification of the transport zone, wherein configuring the plurality of DCNs to connect to the network comprises utilizing the unique identification of the transport zone to connect the plurality of DCNs to the LFE.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the read-only configuration construct of 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 construct 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 on a first host is connected to the logical network using read-only configuration construct of the logical network;

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

by the compute manager, deploying a shadow of the first DCN on the second 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 host has failed; and

by the compute manager, configuring the shadow DCN on the second 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 host physical computing devices;

a compute manager configured to;

configure one or more data compute nodes (DCNs) on virtualization software of each host;

a network manager configured to;

configure a logical network; and

provide a read-only configuration construct of the logical network to the virtualization software of a set of hosts in the plurality of hosts,

the compute manager is further configured to;

obtain the read-only configuration construct of the logical network from the virtualization software of the set of hosts; and

configure the plurality of DCNs to connect to the logical network using the read only configuration information of the network.

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 on one or more hosts,

wherein configuring the plurality of DCNs to connect to the logical network comprises configuring the plurality of 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 host in the set of hosts to the transport zone; and

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

16. The system of claim 15, the read-only configuration construct of 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 hosts as hosts connected to the transport zone using the unique identification of the transport zone, wherein configuring the plurality of DCNs to connect to the network by the compute manager comprises utilizing the unique identification of the transport zone to connect the plurality of DCNs to the LFE.

17. The system of claim 15, the read-only configuration construct of 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 construct of 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 on a first host is connected to the logical network using read-only configuration construct of the logical network;

determine that a second host is connected to the logical network using read-only configuration construct of the logical network; and

configure and deploy a shadow of the first DCN on the second 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 host has failed; and

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

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