Network bandwidth reservations for system traffic and virtual computing instances

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016269318-A1
Application number	US-201514644789-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Mar 11, 2015
Priority date	Mar 11, 2015
Publication date	Sep 15, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Virtual computing instances are provisioned with network resource allocation constraints, which may include hard constraints that must be met in order for the virtual computing instances to be created in a host server. Network resources from multiple hosts may be pooled in a virtual switch, and a cloud management system (CMS) may ensure that a network bandwidth reservation for a new virtual computing instance can be accommodated by network bandwidth in the pool that is reserved for communication endpoint traffic. In addition to such CMS-level constraint enforcement, techniques disclosed herein may also enforce network bandwidths constraints at the host level to guarantee that network bandwidth reservation requirements for communication endpoint(s) of a new virtual computing instance can be satisfied by a particular host before creating the virtual computing instance in that host.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A computer-implemented method for provisioning a virtual computing instance on a host computer device, comprising:
receiving a request to provision the virtual computing instance, wherein a communication endpoint of the virtual computing instance is associated with a network bandwidth reservation specifying a minimum bandwidth guaranteed to the communication endpoint; identifying a physical network interface device of the host computing device, if any, having sufficient bandwidth to accommodate the network bandwidth reservation; if the physical network interface device having sufficient bandwidth is identified, assigning the communication endpoint to the identified physical network interface device and creating the virtual computing instance in the host computer; and if no physical network interface device having sufficient bandwidth is identified, not creating the virtual computing instance in the host computer.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the physical network interface device includes determining whether a physical network interface device of the host computing device having the largest available bandwidth can accommodate the network bandwidth reservation.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein identifying the physical network interface device further includes reassigning one or more communication endpoints to different physical network interface devices to increase the available bandwidth on one of the physical network interface devices.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the request to provision the virtual computing instance further specifies a network resource pool to which the virtual computing instance is to be connected, further comprising, determining whether the network bandwidth reservation can be accommodated by an aggregated virtual computing instance network traffic reservation bandwidth of the network resource pool.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein, in addition to the virtual computing instance network traffic reservation, network bandwidth reservations are specified for system traffic, the system traffic including at least one of live virtual machine migration traffic, virtual storage area network (VSAN) traffic, host-based replication (HBR) traffic, network file system (NFS) traffic, continuous availability application traffic, and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) traffic.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the physical network interface device is identified by one of a resource scheduler which balances workloads in a virtual computing environment and a high availability module which provides failover protection.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining that a physical network interface device of the host computing device has failed; identifying another physical network interface device of the host computing device, if any, having sufficient bandwidth to accommodate network bandwidth reservations of communication endpoints assigned to the failed physical network interface device; and if the other physical network interface device having sufficient bandwidth to accommodate the network bandwidth reservations of the communication endpoints assigned to the failed physical network interface device is identified, assigning the communication endpoints assigned to the failed physical network interface device to the identified physical network interface device.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the assigned communication endpoint is attached to a distributed virtual port (DVport) of a distributed virtual switch (DVSwitch) through which the communication endpoint is connected to the identified physical network interface device.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication endpoint is further associated with at least one of a limit specifying a maximum bandwidth that can be allocated to the communication endpoint and a share value specifying a weight provided to flows of the communication endpoint when sharing bandwidth available for burst.

10 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing a program which, when executed by one or more processors, performs operations for provisioning a virtual computing instance on a host computer device, the operations comprising:
receiving a request to provision the virtual computing instance, wherein a communication endpoint of the virtual computing instance is associated with a network bandwidth reservation specifying a minimum bandwidth guaranteed to the communication endpoint; identifying a physical network interface device of the host computing device, if any, having sufficient bandwidth to accommodate the network bandwidth reservation; if the physical network interface device having sufficient bandwidth is identified, assigning the virtual network interface to the identified physical network interface device and creating the virtual computing instance in the host computer; and if no physical network interface device having sufficient bandwidth is identified, not creating the virtual computing instance in the host computer.

11 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein identifying the physical network interface device includes determining whether a physical network interface device of the host computing device having the largest available bandwidth can accommodate the network bandwidth reservation.

12 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein identifying the physical network interface device further includes reassigning one or more communication endpoints to different physical network interface devices to increase the available bandwidth on one of the physical network interface devices.

13 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the request to provision the virtual computing instance further specifies a network resource pool to which the virtual computing instance is to be connected, and wherein the operations further comprise determining whether the network bandwidth reservation can be accommodated by an aggregated virtual computing instance network traffic reservation bandwidth of the network resource pool.

14 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein, in addition to the virtual computing instance network traffic reservation, network bandwidth reservations are specified for system traffic, the system traffic including at least one of live virtual machine migration traffic, virtual storage area network (VSAN) traffic, host-based replication (HBR) traffic, network file system (NFS) traffic, continuous availability application traffic, and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) traffic.

15 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein the physical network interface device is identified by one of a resource scheduler which balances workloads in a virtual computing environment and a high availability module which provides failover protection.

16 . The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , the operations further comprising:
determining that a physical network interface device of the host computing device has failed; identifying another physical network interface device of the host computing device, if any, having sufficient bandwidth to accommodate network bandwidth reservations of communication endpoints assigned to the failed physical network interface device; and if the other physical network interface device having sufficient bandwidth to accommodate the network bandwidth reservations of the communication endpoints assigned to the failed physical network interface device is identified, assigning the commu

Assignees

• Vmware Inc

Inventors

• Su Chi-Hsiang
• Katrekar Akshay
• Yang Guolin

Classifications

• H04L47/805 Primary

  QOS or priority aware · CPC title

• H04L47/785

  among multiple network domains, e.g. multilateral agreements · CPC title

• H04L41/0654

  using network fault recovery (ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437) · CPC title

• H04L47/72

  using reservation actions during connection setup · CPC title

• H04L41/5025

  by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade · CPC title