Vmware, Inc.

Nicira, Inc.

Haihua Luo

Kai-Wei Fan

Jayant Jain

Jia Yu

Dexiang Wang

Stephen Tan

Mike Parsa

Michael M Hu

Jerry Cheng

Some embodiments of the invention provide novel methods for providing a stateful service at a network edge device (e.g., an NSX edge) that has a plurality of north-facing interfaces (e.g., interfaces to an external network) and a plurality of corresponding south-facing interfaces (e.g., interfaces to a logical network). A set of interfaces on each side of the network edge device for a set of equal cost paths, in some embodiments, are bonded together in the network edge device to correspond to a single interface on either side of a logical bridge including at least one logical switch providing a stateful service implemented by the network edge device. The bond is implemented, in some embodiments, by a bonding module executing on the network edge device that maintains a mapping between ingress and egress interfaces to allow deterministic forwarding through the network edge device in the presence of bonded interfaces.

Port mapping for bonded interfaces of ECMP group

A method for cooperative active-standby failover between service routers based on health of services configured on the service routers is presented. In an embodiment, a method comprises determining, by a first service router ('SR') of a SR cluster, a plurality of aggregate score values for a plurality of SRs of the SR clusters. The SR cluster comprises the first SR which is active, and a second SR. An aggregate score value, of the plurality of aggregate score values, indicates health of one or more services configured on a SR. The method further comprises determining, based on the plurality of aggregate score values, whether the first SR, of the SR cluster, is healthier than the second SR. In response to determining that the first SR is healthier than the second SR, the first SR continues to operate in the active mode; otherwise, the first SR switches to a standby mode.

Method of cooperative active-standby failover between logical routers based on health of attached services

A method for providing two-channel-based high-availability in a cluster of nodes is disclosed. In an embodiment, a method comprises: initiating, by a local control plane executing on a first node, a first state for an underlay control channel and a second state for a management control channel; detecting a bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD) control packet from a second node; determining whether the BFD control packet has been received from the underlay control channel; in response to determining that the BFD control packet was received from the underlay control channel: parsing the BFD control packet to extract a first diagnostic code; updating the first state with the first diagnostic code; determining whether both the first state and the second state indicate a need to switch services configured on the second node; in response to the determining, initiating a switchover of services configured on the second node.

Two-channel-based high-availability

A method for providing two-channel-based high-availability in a cluster of nodes is disclosed. In an embodiment, a method comprises: initiating, by a local control plane executing on a first node, a first state for an underlay control channel and a second state for a management control channel; detecting a bidirectional forwarding detection ('BFD') control packet from a second node; determining whether the BFD control packet has been received from the underlay control channel; in response to determining that the BFD control packet was received from the underlay control channel: parsing the BFD control packet to extract a first diagnostic code; updating the first state with the first diagnostic code; determining whether both the first state and the second state indicate that the second node is unreachable; in response to determining that the second node is unreachable, initiating a switchover of services configured on the second node.

A method of determining the state of each peer node in a pair of first and second peer nodes is provided. The first node is configured as a confirmed active node and the second node is configured as a standby node. The second node transitions into a tentative active mode when a predetermined number of heartbeat messages are lost between the pair nodes while the first and second nodes remain functional. The second node receives a first message from the first node after the heartbeat messages are established between the peer nodes. The first message indicates that the first node is in the confirmed active mode. In response to the first message, the second node transitions from the tentative active mode into the standby mode and sends a second message from the second node to the first node indicating that the second node is in the standby mode.

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Haihua Luo