Method for resource optimized network virtualization overlay transport in virtualized data center environments

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2015195178-A1
Application number	US-201414151024-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 9, 2014
Priority date	Jan 9, 2014
Publication date	Jul 9, 2015
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method for resource optimized network virtualization overlay transport in a virtualized data center environment includes an optimized virtualized transport mechanism based on MPLS-TP tunneling technology. The transport mechanism may include a usage monitoring and resource usage advertisement mechanism based on IGP-TE protocol extension. Also, the transport mechanism may include a path computation engine (PCE) based optimal path computation for a virtualized transport tunnel used to carry VM-to-VM traffic across the virtualized data center. Additionally, the transport mechanism may include a SDN controller for provisioning and control of virtualized machines and a virtualized transport system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method of transferring a data packet from a first virtual machine to a second virtual machine in a virtualized network, the method comprising:
generating the data packet at the first virtual machine; encapsulating the data packet and providing a header to the encapsulated data packet, the header comprising one of:
inherent COS and TTL values of the data packet from the first virtual machine; and
user-defined COS and TTL values.
transmitting the encapsulated data packet to the second virtual machine via at least one network switch.

2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the header comprises a plurality of fields.

3 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the header comprises a virtual network identifier.

4 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine are present in two separate VLAN (virtual LAN) networks.

5 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the virtual network is selected from one of a group of networks, the group comprising a Virtual extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN), a Network Virtualization Generic Routing Encapsulation (NV-GRE) network, a media access control (MAC)-in-MAC network and other Layer 2 over a Layer 3 network.

6 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the virtual network is a data center.

7 . A method of determining a communications path between a first virtual machine and a second virtual machine in a virtualized network, the method comprising:
generating a first data packet at the first virtual machine; encapsulating the first data packet and providing a header to the encapsulated first data packet, the header comprising at least a destination address and a user defined TTL (Time to Live) value, the TTL value being set to an initial value of one; transmitting the encapsulated first data packet; receiving an acknowledgement of receipt of the encapsulated first data packet from a node; determining status of delivery of the encapsulated first data packet; and sending, on the basis of determination, subsequent data packets from the first virtual machine, the subsequent data packets being identical to the first data packet and differing in TTL values that are successively incremented by a pre-defined number, thereby enabling tracing the communications path between the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine.

8 . The method according to claim 7 , wherein the header comprises a plurality of fields.

9 . The method according to claim 8 , wherein the header comprises a virtual network identifier.

10 . The method according to claim 7 , wherein the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine are present in two separate VLAN (virtual LAN) networks.

11 . The method according to claim 7 , wherein the virtual network is selected from one of a group of networks, the group comprising a Virtual extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN), a Network Virtualization Generic Routing Encapsulation (NV-GRE) network, a media access control (MAC)-in-MAC network and other Layer 2 over a Layer 3 network.

12 . The method according to claim 7 , further comprising:
receiving at the second virtual machine, a request for a Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) session be established over a link from the first virtual machine; generating a first data packet at the first virtual machine, upon receipt of confirmation from the second virtual machine; encapsulating the first data packet and providing a header to the encapsulated first data packet, the header comprising at least a destination address and a user defined alert bit; transmitting the encapsulated first data packet; receiving an acknowledgement of receipt of the encapsulated first data packet from the second virtual machine; and sending, subsequent data packets from the first virtual machine to the second virtual machine in a pre-defined manner as per the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) session established.

13 . The method according to claim 7 , further comprising enabling identification on the status of the link between the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine based on the communication status between the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine.

14 . The method according to claim 7 , wherein the first virtual machine and the second virtual machine are present in two separate VLAN (virtual LAN) networks.

15 . A method of determining an optimal placement of a virtual machine in a virtual data center network, the method comprising:
monitoring resource utilization by a plurality of virtual machines; receiving a virtual machine utilization summary from a server; updating a resource database of virtual machine utilization within the virtualized data center network based on the received virtual machine utilization summary; receiving a request to one of create, delete, and relocate a first virtual machine; determining an optimal placement within the virtual data center network of the first virtual machine based on the updated resource database and a path computation engine.

16 . The method according to claim 15 , wherein the path computation engine will utilize algorithmic computation calculations to find the optimal placement of the first virtual machine.

17 . The method according to claim 16 , wherein the path computation engine will utilize algorithmic computation calculations to find an optimal re-routing of an existing virtual machine.

18 . The method according to claim 16 , wherein the path computation engine will dynamically map the resource utilization status of a plurality of servers in the virtual data center network based on a status message received from a virtual data center monitor.

19 . The method according to claim 16 , wherein the path computation engine will run policy constraint combinatorial optimization algorithms to find a free virtual machine slot on a first server that will satisfy the policy constraints.

20 . The method according to claim 16 , wherein the virtual data center network is selected from one of a group of networks, the group comprising a Virtual extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN), a Network Virtualization Generic Routing Encapsulation (NV-GRE) network, a media access control (MAC)-in-MAC network and other Layer 2 over a Layer 3 network.

Assignees

• Ciena Corp

Inventors

• Bhattacharya Somen
• Abdul Kather Jilani Jaffar Hameed

Classifications

• H04L41/0894

  Policy-based network configuration management · CPC title

• H04L12/1886

  with traffic restrictions for efficiency improvement, e.g. involving subnets or subdomains · CPC title

• H04L45/745

  Address table lookup; Address filtering · CPC title

• H04L41/0895

  Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements · CPC title

• H04L41/342

  between virtual entities, e.g. orchestrators, SDN or NFV entities · CPC title