Physical path determination for virtual network packet flows

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9898317-B2
Application number	US-201314406107-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 5, 2013
Priority date	Jun 6, 2012
Publication date	Feb 20, 2018
Grant date	Feb 20, 2018

Abstract

In general, techniques are described for configuring and managing virtual networks. For example, a distributed virtual network controller is described that configures and manages an overlay network within a physical network formed by plurality of switches. A plurality of servers are interconnected by the switch fabric, each of the servers comprising an operating environment executing one or more virtual machines in communication via the overlay networks. The servers comprises a set of virtual switches that extends the overlay network as a virtual network to the operating environment of the virtual machines. The controller may instruct the servers and the virtual switches to perform various operations, such as determining a physical network path taken by packets of a network packet flow, determining latency through the network, re-routing traffic in the virtual network due to network events, replicating traffic for multicasting, providing multi-tenant services to support multiple virtual networks, monitoring and logging traffic characteristics within the virtual networks and other operations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a first set of elements and a second set of elements that implement one or more virtual networks;
a first server device and a second server device each connected to a switch fabric;
a first virtual network controller node device configured to store route data and to store, to a first configuration database using an interface protocol, configuration information for the first set of elements and to send the route data and configuration information for the first set of elements to the first set of elements to control virtual switching operation of the first set of elements to implement a first one or more overlay networks, over the switch fabric, for tunneling packets among elements of the first set of elements for the one or more virtual networks, wherein the first set of elements includes the first server device; and
a second virtual network controller node device configured to store route data and to store, to a second configuration database using the interface protocol, configuration information for the second set of elements and to send the route data and configuration information for the second set of elements to the second set of elements to control virtual switching operation of the second set of elements to implement a second one or more overlay networks, over the switch fabric, for tunneling packets among elements of the second set of elements for the one or more virtual networks, wherein the second set of elements includes the second server device,
wherein the first virtual network controller node device and the second virtual network controller node device are peers according to a peering protocol by which the first virtual network controller node device and the second virtual network controller node device exchange information relating to the virtual switching operation of the first set of elements and the second set of elements, the information including the route data for the first set of elements and the route data for the second set of elements.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a virtual network switch of the first server device, the virtual network switch being configured to facilitate overlay of a plurality of networks in the one or more virtual networks by tunneling packets to the second server device using a layer 3 protocol.

3. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein the first virtual network controller node device includes a first analytics database for storing diagnostic information related to the first set of elements,
wherein the second virtual network controller node device includes a second analytics database for storing diagnostic information related to the second set of elements, and
wherein the first virtual network controller node device and the second virtual network controller node are configured to share at least some diagnostic data related to one or more of the first set of elements and the second set of elements.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the first analytics database and the second analytics database are parts of a distributed database.

5. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein the first virtual network controller node device includes a first configuration database for storing the configuration information for the first set of elements using an Interface for Metadata Access Points protocol,
wherein the second virtual network controller node device includes a second configuration database for storing the configuration information for the second set of elements, and
wherein the first virtual network controller node device and the second virtual network controller node are configured to share at least some configuration data for one or more of the first set of elements and the second set of elements.

6. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a user interface configured for interacting with the first virtual network controller node device and for interacting with the second virtual network controller node device.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the first virtual network controller node device is configured to use the peering protocol to provide the information related to the virtual switching operation of the first set of elements to the second virtual network controller node device.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the peering protocol is a Border Gateway Protocol.

9. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein the first virtual network controller node device includes a first control plane virtual machine,
wherein the second virtual network controller node device includes a second control plane virtual machine, and
wherein the first control plane virtual machine is configured to use the peering protocol to provide the information related to the virtual switching operation of the first set of elements to the second control plane virtual machine.

10. The system of claim 9 , further comprising:
a virtual network switch implemented in the first server device and configured to facilitate overlay of a plurality of networks in the one or more virtual networks, wherein the first control plane virtual machine is configured to use an eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol to communicate with the virtual network switch.

11. The system of claim 9 ,
wherein the first virtual network controller node device further includes a first configuration virtual machine configured to store the configuration information for the first set of elements, and
wherein the first control plane virtual machine is configured to use at least one of an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol and an Interface for Metadata Access Points protocol to communicate with the first configuration virtual machine.

12. The system of claim 9 ,
wherein the first virtual network controller node device further includes a first analytics virtual machine configured to store diagnostic information related to the first set of elements, and
wherein the first control plane virtual machine is configured use an eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol to communicate with the first analytics virtual machine.

13. The system of claim 9 ,
wherein the first control plane virtual machine includes a type of software of a particular version, and
wherein the second control plane virtual machine includes the type of software of a different version that is different from the particular version.

14. A method for facilitating operation of one or more virtual networks, the one or more virtual networks including a first server device and a second server device each connected to a switch fabric, the method comprising:
using a first virtual network controller node device to store route data and configuration information for the first set of elements and to send the route data and to store, to a first configuration database using an interface protocol, configuration information for the first set of elements to the first set of elements to control operation of a first set of elements to implement a first one or more overlay networks, over the switch fabric, for tunneling packets among elements of the first set of elements for in the one or more virtual networks, wherein the first set of elements includes the first server device;
using a second virtual network controller node device to store route data and to store, to a second configuration database using the interface protocol, configuration information for the second set of elements and to send the route data and configuration information for the second set of elements to the second set of elements to control operation of a second set of elements to implement a second one or more overlay networks, over the switch fabric, for tunneling packets amon

Assignees

• Juniper Networks Inc

Inventors

• Nakil Harshad Bhaskar
• Singla Ankur

Classifications

• H04L41/0631

  using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis · CPC title

• G06F9/455

  Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines · CPC title

• H04L61/103

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

• G06F11/07

  Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance · CPC title

• G06F2009/45595

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