Monitoring connectivity and latency of a virtual network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11063857-B2
Application number	US-201816198732-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 21, 2018
Priority date	May 25, 2018
Publication date	Jul 13, 2021
Grant date	Jul 13, 2021

Abstract

Techniques are described herein that are capable of monitoring connectivity and latency of network links in virtual networks. For instance, a ping agent injects first ping packets into network traffic on behalf of hosts in the virtual network. The ping agent monitors incoming packets to identify first ping response packets, which are in response to the first ping packets, among the incoming packets. A ping responder rule that is included in inbound packet filter rules for a port in a virtual switch intercepts second ping packets in the network traffic. The ping responder rule converts the second ping packets into second ping response packets and injects the second ping response packets into outbound packet filter rules to be transferred to sources from which the second ping packets are received.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a memory; and
one or more processors coupled to the memory, the memory storing thereon computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
inject, outside of a source virtual machine in a virtual network, ping packets into a network on behalf of a source virtual machine, the ping packets having a source virtual address of the source virtual machine and a destination virtual address of a destination virtual machine;
route the ping packets to the destination virtual machine based on the destination virtual address;
intercept the ping packets at a destination virtual port before arrival at the destination virtual machine in the virtual network;
convert the ping packets into ping response packets, wherein the ping packets are converted outside of the destination virtual machine;
inject, outside of the destination virtual machine, the ping response packets into the network on behalf of the destination virtual machine; and
route the ping response packets to the source virtual machine based on the source virtual address.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein each of the ping packets specifies a source address from which the respective ping packet is received, a destination address to which the respective ping packet is to be provided, a name of a source port from which the respective ping packet is received, and a name of a destination port to which the respective ping packet is to be provided;
further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
convert the ping packets into the ping response packets by swapping the source address and the destination address and by swapping the name of the source port and the name of the destination port from each ping packet to generate the respective ping response packet.

3. The system of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
distinguish the ping packets from other packets in the network based at least in part on each ping packet having a pre-defined TCP option code and a pre-defined number in an options header of the respective ping packet.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
determine a round-trip time associated with each ping packet for which a corresponding ping response packet is received, the round-trip time being equal to a difference between a send time instance at which the respective ping packet is injected into the network and a receipt time instance at which the corresponding ping response packet is received.

5. The system of claim 4 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
generate an alert based at least in part on one or more round-trip times associated with one or more respective ping packets for which corresponding ping response packets are greater than or equal to a threshold time.

6. The system of claim 4 ,
further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
aggregate information regarding one or more first hosts to which the ping packets are directed and one or more hosts to which the corresponding ping response packets are directed
automatically perform at least one of the following operations based at least in part on the aggregated information and further based at least in part on one or more round-trip times associated with one or more first ping packets for which corresponding ping response packets are greater than or equal to a threshold time:
stop at least one of software development or a configuration change on at least one of one or more clusters of nodes or one or more nodes in a cluster, based at least in part on the one or more first hosts and the one or more second hosts being included in the at least one of the one or more clusters or the one or more nodes;
migrate hosts associated with the one or more ping packets to one or more clusters or one or more nodes that include none of the one or more first hosts and none of the one or more second hosts;
throttle network traffic having a priority that is less than a threshold priority; and
activate standby networking devices.

7. The system of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
indicate a ping timeout error for each ping packet for which a corresponding ping response packet is not received; and
generate an alert based at least in part on a number of ping timeout errors being greater than or equal to an error threshold.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
indicate a ping timeout error for each ping packet for a corresponding first ping response packet that is not received; and
aggregate information regarding one or more source hosts and one or more destination hosts for the ping packets for the corresponding ping response packets that are not received,
automatically perform at least one of the following operations based at least in part on the aggregated information and further based at least in part on a number of ping timeout errors being greater than or equal to an error threshold:
stop at least one of software development or a configuration change on at least one of one or more clusters of nodes or one or more nodes in a cluster, based at least in part on the one or more source hosts and the one or more destination hosts being included in the at least one of the one or more clusters or the one or more nodes;
migrate the one or more source hosts and the one or more destination hosts to one or more clusters or one or more nodes having fewer ping timeout errors than one or more clusters or one or more nodes from which the one or more source hosts and the one or more destination hosts are migrated;
throttle network traffic having a priority that is less than a threshold priority; and
activate standby networking devices.

9. The system of claim 1 ,
further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
inhibit the ping packets from being processed by a metering rule and an access control rule by intercepting the ping packets.

10. The system of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
inject the ping packets into the network without passing the ping packets through a metering rule and without passing the ping packets through an access control list rule.

11. The system of claim 1 further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform operations comprising:
inject the ping response packets without passing the ping response packets through a metering rule and without passing the ping response packets through an access control list rule.

12. The system of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform op

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Tewari Rishabh
• Firestone Daniel
• Chandrappa Harish Kumar
• Adusumilli Anitha
• Brumley David Michael
• Bansal Deepak
• Greenberg Albert Gordon
• Sharma Parag
• Roy Arjun

Classifications

• H04L43/20

  the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV · CPC title

• H04L41/40

  using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities · CPC title

• H04L43/0864

  Round trip delays · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

  Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances · CPC title

• H04L43/0841

  Round trip packet loss · CPC title