Method and system to allocate bandwidth for heterogeneous bandwidth request in cloud computing networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9621425-B2
Application number	US-201313851694-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 27, 2013
Priority date	Mar 27, 2013
Publication date	Apr 11, 2017
Grant date	Apr 11, 2017

Abstract

A method implemented by a network service provider to provide a virtual network to tenants requiring bandwidth in a cloud computing environment, where the virtual network includes a first set of one or more virtual switches that manage a second set of one or more physical servers that host virtual machines (VMs). The method starts with receiving by one virtual switch a request for a first plurality of VMs, where at least one VM of the first plurality of VMs contains a bandwidth different from bandwidths of the rest of one or more VMs. The it is determined whether to accept the request for the first plurality of VMs by calculating a set of allocation ranges (ARs) associated to the virtual switch, wherein each AR of the set of ARs denotes at least one discontinuous VM allocation space within a virtual switch. Then VMs are allocated for the request.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method implemented by a network service provider to provide a virtual network to tenants requiring bandwidth in a cloud computing environment, wherein the virtual network includes a first set of virtual switches that manage a set of one or more physical servers that host virtual machines (VMs), the method comprising:
receiving by at least one virtual switch a request for a first plurality of VMs, wherein at least one VM of the first plurality of VMs contains a bandwidth different from bandwidths of the rest of one or more VMs within the first plurality of VMs;
determining whether to accept the request for the first plurality of VMs by calculating a set of allocation ranges (ARs) associated to the at least one virtual switch, wherein each AR of the set of ARs denotes at least one discontinuous allocation of VMs within the at least one virtual switch; and
allocating VMs for the request for the first plurality of VMs in response to the determination of accepting the first plurality of VMs.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the request for the first plurality of VMs is converted from a set of bandwidth requests by a tenant.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein each AR of the set of ARs is a data structure that contains a number of bits indicating none or a number of VMs within the first plurality of VMs that are available for allocation.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein each AR of the set of ARs of the at least one virtual switch is calculated based in part on a residual bandwidth of an outbound link of the at least one virtual switch and ARs associated with a second set of one or more physical servers managed by the at least one virtual switch.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the set of ARs associated with the second set of one or more physical servers are calculated based in part on residual bandwidths of outbound links of the second set of one or more physical servers and a second plurality of VMs of the second set of one or more physical servers.

6. The method of claim 4 , wherein each AR of the set of ARs associated with a physical server of the second set of one or more physical servers is a data structure that contains a number of bits equal to two plus a difference between index numbers of two VMs, wherein the first plurality of VMs are sorted based on a number of VM slots required.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein each AR of the set of ARs contains a continuous basic section and at least one extended section.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein a length of the continuous basic section is less than half of a total length of each AR.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first set of virtual switches are configured hierarchically with at least two levels, a higher level virtual switch managing at least one lower level virtual switch.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the VMs are allocated to servers in order from a server with a highest allowable extended section upper bound of an AR to rest of servers with lower allowable extended section of ARs.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising limiting tenant bandwidth consumption within the allocated VMs to a tenant.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising sending a tenant a rejection message in response to the determination of rejecting the request for the first plurality of VMs.

13. A network device serving as at least one virtual switch for a network service provider to provide a virtual network to a tenant requiring bandwidth in a cloud computing environment, wherein the virtual network includes a first set of virtual switches that manage a set of one or more physical servers that host a first plurality of virtual machines (VMs), the network device comprising circuitry configured to:
receive a request for the first plurality of VMs, wherein at least one VM of the first plurality of VMs contains a bandwidth different from bandwidths of the rest of one or more VMs within the first plurality of VMs;
calculate a set of ARs associated to the at least one virtual switch to determine whether to accept the request of the first plurality of VMs by calculating a set of allocation range (ARs) associated to the at least one virtual switch, wherein each AR of the set of ARs denotes at least one discontinuous VM allocation space within the at least one virtual switch; and
allocate VMs for the request for the first plurality of VMs in response to the determination to accept the first plurality of VMs,
wherein the VMs are allocated to servers in order from a server with a highest allowable extended section upper bound of an AR to rest of servers with lower allowable extended section of ARs.

14. The network device of claim 13 , wherein the circuitry is further configured to:
receive a set of bandwidth requests for the tenant; and
convert the set of bandwidth requests from the tenant into a request of the first plurality of VMs.

15. The network device of claim 13 , wherein each AR of the set of ARs is a data structure that contains a number of bits indicating none or a number of VMs within the first plurality of VMs that are available for allocation.

16. The network device of claim 13 , wherein the circuitry is further configured to communicate with a second set of one or more physical servers managed by the network device, wherein each AR of the set of ARs of the network device is calculated based in part on a residual bandwidth of an outbound link of the network device and ARs associated with the second set of one or more physical servers.

17. The network device of claim 16 , wherein the set of ARs associated with the second set of one or more physical servers are calculated based in part on residual bandwidths of outbound links of the second set of one or more physical servers and a second plurality of VMs of the second set of one or more physical servers.

18. The network device of claim 16 , wherein each AR of the set of ARs associated with a physical server of the second set of one or more physical servers is a data structure that contains a number of bits equal to two plus a difference between index numbers of two VMs, wherein the first plurality of VMs are sorted based on a number of VM slots required.

19. The network device of claim 18 , wherein each AR of the set of ARs contains a continuous basic section and at least one extended section.

20. The network device of claim 19 , wherein the circuitry is further configured to split ARs so that for each AR, a length of the continuous basic section is less than half of a total length of the AR.

21. The network device of claim 13 , wherein the first set of virtual switches are configured hierarchically with at least two levels, a higher level virtual switch managing at least one lower level virtual switch.

22. The network device of claim 13 , wherein the circuitry is further configured to limit tenant bandwidth consumption within the allocated VMs to the tenant.

23. The network device of claim 13 , wherein the circuitry is further configured to send a tenant rejection message upon the determination that the request cannot be satisfied.

24. A method implemented by a network service provider to provide a virtual network to a tenant requiring bandwidth in a cloud computing environment, and wherein the virtual network includes a first set of one or more virtual switches that manage a set of one or more physical servers that host virtual machines (VMs), the method comprising:
converting a set of bandwidth requests

Assignees

• Ericsson Ab
• Ericsson Telefon Ab L M

Inventors

• Zhang Ying
• Li Dan
• Zhu Jing

Classifications

• H04L67/101

  based on network conditions · CPC title

• H04L41/5096

  wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications · CPC title

• H04L41/0896 Primary

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title

• H04L41/40

  using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities · CPC title

• H04L41/0897 Primary

  by horizontal or vertical scaling of resources, or by migrating entities, e.g. virtual resources or entities · CPC title