In-place conversion of a virtual switch on a host

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11601383-B1
Application number	US-202117476758-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 16, 2021
Priority date	Sep 16, 2021
Publication date	Mar 7, 2023
Grant date	Mar 7, 2023

Abstract

The disclosure provides an approach for in-place conversion of a virtual switch on a host. Techniques are provided for in-place conversion of a virtual switch from a first type of virtual switch to a destination type of virtual switch. A method includes rekeying, by a second manager agent, one or more uplink ports associated with one or more logical switches implemented by the virtual on the host with the unique identifier. The rekeying includes updating one or more existing uplink port identifiers assigned to the one or more uplink ports with the unique identifier associated with a first manager agent. The method includes removing, by the first manager agent, an association of the one or more uplink ports with the opaque network; and informing the first manager and the second manager that the virtual switch is of the destination type of virtual switch.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of in-place conversion of a virtual switch from a first type of virtual switch to a destination type of virtual switch, the method comprising:
sending, by a first manager agent on a host to a second manager agent on the host, a call instructing the second manager agent to rekey one or more uplink ports associated with one or more logical switches implemented by the virtual switch on the host, wherein:
the first manager agent is associated with a first manager and the second manager agent is associated with a second manager; and
the call includes a unique identifier associated with the first manager;

rekeying, by the second manager agent, the one or more uplink ports on the host with the unique identifier, wherein the rekeying includes updating one or more existing uplink port identifiers assigned to the one or more uplink ports with the unique identifier associated with the first manager agent;
sending, by the first manager agent to the second manager agent, a second call indicating that the virtual switch is not an opaque network;
removing, by the second manager agent, an association of the one or more uplink ports with the opaque network; and
informing the first manager and the second manager that the virtual switch is of the destination type of virtual switch.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first type of virtual switch comprises a virtual distributed switch (VDS) managed by the second manager and the destination type of virtual switch comprises a converged VDS, wherein the converged VDS includes functionality of the VDS managed by the second manager and functionality of a second type of virtual switch managed by the first manager.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the VDS managed by the second manager implements the one or more logical switches, and wherein after the in-place conversion of the virtual switch to the converged VDS, the one or more logical switches are configured as one or more virtual port groups.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, before sending, by the first manager agent on the host to the second manager agent on the host, the call instructing the second manager agent to rekey:
obtaining, from the second manager, configurations of hosts associated with a virtual distributed switch (VDS) configuration shared by the virtual switch, the configurations including one or more of: a transport node profile, a list of the hosts associated with the VDS configuration, an uplink profile, a mapping a network interfaces of the hosts to uplinks, a network configuration, a configuration of the one or more logical switches, an operating version of the hosts, a maximum transmission unit configuration, and a network input/out control configuration, a list of virtual ports of virtual computing instances (VICs) connected to the one or more logical switches, a status of the hosts, a status of one or more network components; and
verifying, based on the obtained configurations, that the hosts and the virtual switch have an acceptable configuration for in-place conversion.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, before sending, by the first manager agent on the host to the second manager agent on the host, the call instructing the second manager agent to rekey:
sending, by the second manager, a call to the first manager, to create the destination type of virtual switch, the call including the unique ID;
performing, by the first manager, a translation of a configuration of the first type of virtual switch, managed by the second manager, to a configuration of the destination type of virtual switch; and
configuring the destination type of virtual switch at the first manager.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, before sending, by the first manager agent on the host to the second manager agent on the host, the call instructing the second manager agent to rekey:
sending, by the second manager to the first manager agent on the host, a call instructing the first manager to initiate in-place conversion of the virtual switch.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, after informing the first manager and the second manager that the virtual switch is of the destination type of virtual switch:
adding, by the second manager agent on the host, the host to the virtual switch of the destination type of virtual switch at the first manager agent on the host; and
updating, by the second manager agent on the host, a configuration to use the virtual switch of the destination switch type for the host.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, after informing the first manager and the second manager that the virtual switch is of the destination type of virtual switch:
sending, by the second manager agent on the host to a controller of the host, a call instructing the controller to remove the association of the one or more uplink ports with the opaque network from a configuration for the virtual switch stored in a database on the host;
sending, by the controller of the host, a call to remove the association of the one or more uplink ports with the opaque network from the configuration for the virtual switch stored in the database on the host;
sending, by the database on the host to the first manager agent on the host, a call instructing to remove the association of the one or more uplink ports with the opaque network from the configuration for the virtual switch at the first manager; and
sending, by the first manager agent on the host to the first manager, a call to remove the association of the one or more uplink ports with the opaque network from the configuration for the virtual switch at the first manager.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, after informing the first manager and the second manager that the virtual switch is of the destination type of virtual switch:
performing, by the first manager agent on the host, a system refresh; and
sending, by the first manager agent on the host to the second manager, an indication of successful in-place conversion of the virtual switch.

10. A system comprising one or more processors and a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to perform a method of in-place conversion of a virtual switch from a first type of virtual switch to a destination type of virtual switch, the method comprising:
sending, by a first manager agent on a host to a second manager agent on the host, a call instructing the second manager agent to rekey one or more uplink ports associated with one or more logical switches implemented by the virtual switch on the host, wherein:
the first manager agent is associated with a first manager and the second manager agent is associated with a second manager; and
the call includes a unique identifier associated with the first manager;

rekeying, by the second manager agent, the one or more uplink ports on the host with the unique identifier, wherein the rekeying includes updating one or more existing uplink port identifiers assigned to the one or more uplink ports with the unique identifier associated with the first manager agent;
sending, by the first manager agent to the second manager agent, a second call indicating that the virtual switch is not an opaque network;
removing, by the second manager agent, an association of the one or more uplink ports with the opaque network; and
informing the first manager and the second manager that the virtual switch is of the destination type of virtual switch.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the first type of virtual switch comprises a virtual distributed switch (VDS) managed by the second manager and the destination type of

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Nipane Nilesh
• Lolage Aarti
• Rajguru Nikhil
• Kale Akshay
• Naniwadekar Kaustubh

Classifications

• H04L49/70 Primary

  Virtual switches · CPC title

• H04L45/586

  of virtual routers · CPC title