Separating routing domains for virtualized networks when implementing a tunneling protocol

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9014191-B1
Application number	US-201213630797-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 28, 2012
Priority date	Sep 28, 2012
Publication date	Apr 21, 2015
Grant date	Apr 21, 2015

Abstract

Systems and techniques for forwarding a data packet between network components in a virtualized network system are presented. Virtual machines in each virtual network in the virtualized network system are mapped to a unique routing table. Internet protocol (IP) addresses of virtual machines in a virtual network can overlap with IP addresses of virtual machines in another virtual network. A data packet is associated with a particular virtual network based on a tag stored in the data packet. As such, the data packet is forwarded based on a particular routing table associated with the particular virtual network. Additionally, routing domain information can be encoded into an outer source IP field of the data packet at the beginning of an IP tunnel. Furthermore, the routing domain information in the outer source IP field can be used to forward the data packet at the end of the IP tunnel.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a memory storing computer executable components; and
a processor configured to execute the following computer executable components stored in the memory:
a mapping component that maps a plurality of first virtual machines with a plurality of unique addresses in a first virtual network to a first routing table and a plurality of second virtual machines with the plurality of unique addresses in a second virtual network to a second routing table;
a management component that associates a data packet with the first virtual network or the second virtual network based on a tag stored in the data packet;
a routing component that forwards the data packet based on the first routing table in response to a determination that the data packet is associated with the first virtual network and forwards the data packet based on the second routing table in response to a determination that the data packet is associated with the second virtual network; and
an encapsulation component that encodes a virtual cluster identifier into an outer source internet protocol (IP) field of the data packet.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtual cluster identifier is associated with a particular virtual network.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system is implemented in a router at a starting point of an IP tunnel.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the virtual cluster identifier is an IP address that is different than an IP address of the router.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the outer source IP field stores information not used by an intermediate router in the IP tunnel.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the data packet is forwarded to a router implemented remotely from the system.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein one or more of the plurality of first virtual machines is coupled to a first router and one or more of the plurality of first virtual machines is coupled to a second router.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein one or more of the plurality of second virtual machines is coupled to a first router and one or more of the plurality of second virtual machines is coupled to a second router.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the encapsulation component implements a tunneling protocol.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system includes one or more virtual machines that include one or more IP addresses that are different than the plurality of unique addresses.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the virtual cluster identifier includes the tag.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the tag is the virtual cluster identifier.

13. A system, comprising:
a memory storing computer executable components; and
a processor configured to execute the following computer executable components stored in the memory:
a mapping component that maps a plurality of first virtual machines with a plurality of unique addresses in a first virtual network to a first routing table and a plurality of second virtual machines with the plurality of unique addresses in a second virtual network to a second routing table;
a decapsulation component that associates a data packet with the first virtual network or the second virtual network based on a tag coded in an outer source internet protocol (IP) field of the data packet, wherein the outer source IP field of the data packet is encoded with a destination virtual cluster identifier; and
a routing component that forwards the data packet using the first routing table in response to a determination that the data packet is associated with the first virtual network and forwards the data packet using the second routing table in response to a determination that the data packet is associated with the second virtual network.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the tag includes routing domain information.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the data packet is an encapsulated data packet.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein the system is implemented in a router at an end point of an IP tunnel.

17. A method, comprising:
employing a processor that facilitates execution of computer executable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium to implement operations comprising:
maintaining one or more routing tables for one or more virtual networks;
receiving a data packet from a particular virtual network;
associating the data packet with the particular virtual network based on a tag encoded in the data packet;
forwarding the data packet, based on a routing table associated with the tag, wherein the forwarded data packet is encoded with a destination virtual cluster identifier; and
encoding the destination virtual cluster identifier into an outer source internet protocol (IP) field of the data packet.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the encoding includes encapsulating the data packet with an outer header.

19. The method of claim 17 , wherein the encoding includes encoding the tag into the outer source IP field of the data packet.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the tag is the virtual cluster identifier.

21. The method of claim 17 , further comprising encoding an IP address of a remote router into an outer destination IP field of the data packet and implementing tunneling to forward the data packet to a remote network component over a network.

22. The method of claim 17 , wherein the virtual cluster identifier is associated with the particular virtual network.

23. A method, comprising:
employing a processor that facilitates execution of computer executable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer readable medium to implement operations comprising:
maintaining one or more routing tables for one or more virtual networks;
receiving an encapsulated data packet via a tunneling protocol;
obtaining a virtual cluster identifier from an outer source IP field of the encapsulated data packet;
associating the encapsulated data packet with a particular virtual network based on the virtual cluster identifier;
decapsulating the encapsulated data packet to generate a decapsulated data packet; and
forwarding the decapsulated data packet to a virtual machine using a particular routing table corresponding to the particular virtual network.

24. The method of claim 23 , wherein the virtual cluster identifier includes a tag associated with the particular virtual network.

25. The method of claim 23 , wherein the processor receiving the encapsulated data packet is implemented in a router at an end point of an IP tunnel.

Assignees

• Google Inc

Inventors

• Mandal Subhasree
• Vahdat Amin

Classifications

• H04L12/2621 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L45/58

  Association of routers · 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

• H04L12/4633

  Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling · CPC title

• H04L45/74

  Address processing for routing · CPC title