Control plane based technique for handling multi-destination traffic in overlay networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2019124038-A1
Application number	US-201816226444-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Dec 19, 2018
Priority date	Apr 7, 2016
Publication date	Apr 25, 2019
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method is provided in one example embodiment and includes receiving at a controller an Address Resolution Protocol (“ARP”) packet from a source VXLAN Tunnel End Point (“VTEP”) serving a source host and identifying a destination, the source VTEP having assigned thereto a Virtual Network Identifier (“VNI”) identifying a VXLAN network to which the source VTEP and a plurality of other VTEPs belong, the ARP packet being received by the controller via a control plane; determining whether the received ARP packet is a request message; and, if the received ARP packet is a request message, determining whether address information for the identified destination is stored in a cache of the controller.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
receiving at a controller an Address Resolution Protocol (“ARP”) request message from a source VXLAN Tunnel End Point (“VTEP”) identifying a destination, the source VTEP having a Virtual Network Identifier (“VNI”) identifying a VXLAN network to which the source VTEP and a plurality of other VTEPs belong, the ARP request message being received by the controller via a control plane; sending, in response to address information for the identified destination being stored in a cache of the controller, a proxy ARP response to the source VTEP via the control plane, wherein the proxy ARP response includes the destination address information; and sending, in response to the destination address information for the identified destination not being stored in the cache of the controller, the request message to each one of the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving at a controller ARP response message from the source VTEP; updating the cache of the controller to include destination address information contained in the response message and sending the response message to the source VTEP via the control plane.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
updating, in response to the received ARP request message being a gratuitous ARP (“GARP”) message indicating a virtual machine (“VM”), the cache with VM address information included in the GARP message and forwarding the GARP message to the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

4 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
forwarding, in response the received ARP request message being a gratuitous GARP message that does not indicate a VM move, the GARP message to the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the control plane comprises an OpenFlow control plane.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller comprises an OpenFlow Software Defined Network (“OF SDN”) controller.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein upon receipt of the proxy ARP response from the controller, the source VTEP decapsulates the proxy ARP response and forwards the decapsulated proxy ARP response to the source VTEP.

8 . A non-transitory computer readable media storing instructions which when executed by a processor cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving at a controller an Address Resolution Protocol (“ARP”) request message from a source VXLAN Tunnel End Point (“VTEP”) identifying a destination, the source VTEP having a Virtual Network Identifier (“VNI”) identifying a VXLAN network to which the source VTEP and a plurality of other VTEPs belong, the ARP request message being received by the controller via a control plane; sending, in response to address information for the identified destination being stored in a cache of the controller, a proxy ARP response to the source VTEP via the control plane, wherein the proxy ARP response includes the destination address information; and sending, in response to the destination address information for the identified destination not being stored in the cache of the controller, the request message to each one of the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

9 . The media of claim 8 , the operations further comprising:
receiving at a controller ARP response message from the source VTEP; updating the cache of the controller to include destination address information contained in the response message and sending the response message to the source VTEP via the control plane.

10 . The media of claim 9 , the operations further comprising:
updating, in response to the received ARP request message being a gratuitous ARP (“GARP”) message indicating a virtual machine (“VM”), the cache with VM address information included in the GARP message and forwarding the GARP message to the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

11 . The media of claim 9 , the operations further comprising:
forwarding, in response the received ARP request message being a gratuitous GARP message that does not indicate a VM move, the GARP message to the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

12 . The media of claim 8 , wherein the control plane comprises an OpenFlow control plane.

13 . The media of claim 8 , wherein the controller comprises an OpenFlow Software Defined Network (“OF SDN”) controller.

14 . The media of claim 8 , wherein upon receipt of the proxy ARP response from the controller, the source VTEP decapsulates the proxy ARP response and forwards the decapsulated proxy ARP response to the source VTEP.

15 . A system comprising:
a processor; a memory storing instructions which when executed by the processor cause the system to perform operations comprising:
receiving at a controller an Address Resolution Protocol (“ARP”) request message from a source VXLAN Tunnel End Point (“VTEP”) identifying a destination, the source VTEP having a Virtual Network Identifier (“VNI”) identifying a VXLAN network to which the source VTEP and a plurality of other VTEPs belong, the ARP request message being received by the controller via a control plane;
sending, in response to address information for the identified destination being stored in a cache of the controller, a proxy ARP response to the source VTEP via the control plane, wherein the proxy ARP response includes the destination address information; and
sending, in response to the destination address information for the identified destination not being stored in the cache of the controller, the request message to each one of the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

16 . The system of claim 15 , the operations further comprising:
receiving at a controller ARP response message from the source VTEP; updating the cache of the controller to include destination address information contained in the response message and sending the response message to the source VTEP via the control plane.

17 . The system of claim 16 , the operations further comprising:
updating, in response to the received ARP request message being a gratuitous ARP (“GARP”) message indicating a virtual machine (“VM”), the cache with VM address information included in the GARP message and forwarding the GARP message to the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

18 . The system of claim 16 , the operations further comprising:
forwarding, in response the received ARP request message being a gratuitous GARP message that does not indicate a VM move, the GARP message to the plurality of other VTEPs having the same VNI as the source VTEP via the control plane.

19 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the control plane comprises an OpenFlow control plane.

20 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the controller comprises an OpenFlow Software Defined Network (“OF SDN”) controller.

Assignees

• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Mahajan Mehak
• Thoria Samir D
• Kapadia Shyam

Classifications

• G06F9/45558

  Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects · CPC title

• H04L12/4641

  Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] (LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272) · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

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

• H04L61/103 Primary

  across network layers, e.g. resolution of network layer into physical layer addresses or address resolution protocol [ARP] · CPC title

• H04L67/2842

  Electricity · mapped topic