System and method providing distributed virtual routing and switching (DVRS)

• US 9,331,940 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 05/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Balus, Florin S, Boddapati, Suresh, Khandekar, Sunil S, Stiliadis, Dimitrios
• Primary Examiner(s): Mui, Gary
• Application Number:
  US13/841,162
• Publication Number:
  US 20140064283A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,145 Days
• Field of Search: 370/351, 370/392
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/38 Flow based routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches

Abstract

Systems, methods, architectures and/or apparatus for providing a distributed Virtual Routing and Switching (dVRS) solution at a data center (DC) by logically representing the networking resources of the data center as a plurality virtual nodes, each virtual node comprising an IP infrastructure based on a physical network node and a plurality of virtual switches, each virtual switch including a VRS instance linked to one or more VRS instances at other virtual switches via a VLAN to provide thereby a virtual service, wherein the physical network node performs control plane processing and provides to each virtual switch the specific routing information associated with the local services of that virtual switch. Thus, from a data plane perspective the virtual switches route and/or switch traffic directly to tunnels pointing to remote VRS instances without involving the Controller in the forwarding of the packets.

Claims

1. A method for providing virtualized services at a data center (DC), comprising:

establishing a plurality of virtual nodes (VNs), each VN comprising a controller, an internet protocol (IP) infrastructure and a plurality of virtual switches (VSWs);

each VSW being programmed to support a Virtual Routing and Switching (VRS) instance and for storing forwarding information therefor, wherein a virtualized service is provided via a collection of VRS instances interconnected using IP tunnels and L2 or L3 service encapsulations, and

each controller being adapted to receive virtualized service route information from one or more DC gateways, other remote controllers and from local VSW, to process a required forwarding information base (FIB) and to download toward each VSW a corresponding FIB portion.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein virtualized service information is distributed to each VSW participating in a VRS to enable shortest path routing of traffic between different subnets spread across multiple VSWs.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the controller uses a multiprotocol border gateway protocol (MP-BGP) to communicate with other VSW controllers, DC gateways (GWs) or external provider edge (PE) devices.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the controller uses OpenFlow extensions to receive local virtual machine (VM) event information.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said local VM event information comprises any of a VM instantiation, a VM deletion and a VM migration.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the controller uses provider edge (PE) Service Manager procedures to consolidate entries from both a multiprotocol border gateway protocol (MP-BGP) and OpenFlow to build per-tenant FIB tables.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein information downloaded in the VSWs is organized to address 5-tuple forwarding for active flows.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said controller runs in a control plane interaction module (CPIM) of a Top of Rack (ToR) or End of Rack (EoR) switch.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said controller runs in a virtual machine (VM).

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said controller is adapted to communicate with DC gateway routers using a multiprotocol border gateway protocol (MP-BGP) without intermediate translation of a service encapsulation.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein said controller is adapted to communicate with DC gateway routers using a multiprotocol border gateway protocol (MP-BGP), and to select an intermediate translation of a service encapsulation in accordance with requirements of a remote device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said controller is adapted to provide a interface to a policy manager to allow automatic instantiation of services.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said controller is adapted to provide an interface to allow per service monitoring.

14. An apparatus for providing virtualized services at a data center (DC), the apparatus comprising:

a processor configured for;

establishing a plurality of virtual nodes (VNs), each VN comprising a controller, an internet protocol (IP) infrastructure and a plurality of virtual switches (VSWs);

each VSW being programmed to support a Virtual Routing and Switching (VRS) instance and for storing forwarding information therefor, wherein a virtualized service is provided via a collection of VRS instances interconnected using IP tunnels and L2 or L3 service encapsulations, and

each controller being adapted to receive virtualized service route information from one or more DC gateways, other remote controllers and from local VSW, to process a required forwarding information base (FIB) and to download toward each VSW a corresponding FIB portion.

15. A tangible and non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a computer, adapt the operation of the computer to perform a method for providing virtualized services at a data center (DC), the method comprising:

establishing a plurality of virtual nodes (VNs), each VN comprising a controller, an internet protocol (IP) infrastructure and a plurality of virtual switches (VSWs);

each VSW being programmed to support a Virtual Routing and Switching (VRS) instance and for storing forwarding information therefor, wherein a virtualized service is provided via a collection of VRS instances interconnected using IP tunnels and L2 or L3 service encapsulations, and

each controller being adapted to receive virtualized service route information from one or more DC gateways, other remote controllers and from local VSW, to process a required forwarding information base (FIB) and to download toward each VSW a corresponding FIB portion.

16. A non-transitory computer program product wherein computer instructions being stored in a non-transitory computer readable memory, when executed by a processor in a network element, adapt the operation of the network element to provide a method for providing virtualized services at a data center (DC), the method comprising:

establishing a plurality of virtual nodes (VNs), each VN comprising a controller, an internet protocol (IP) infrastructure and a plurality of virtual switches (VSWs);

each VSW being programmed to support a Virtual Routing and Switching (VRS) instance and for storing forwarding information therefor, wherein a virtualized service is provided via a collection of VRS instances interconnected using IP tunnels and L2 or L3 service encapsulations, and

each controller being adapted to receive virtualized service route information from one or more DC gateways, other remote controllers and from local VSW, to process a required forwarding information base (FIB) and to download toward each VSW a corresponding FIB portion.