Nicira, Inc.

Vmware, Inc.

Harold Vinson C Lim

Igor Ganichev

Risi Thonangi

Anupam Chanda

Natasha Gude

Teemu Koponen

Pankaj Thakkar

Justin Pettit

Benjamin L Pfaff

Jesse Ernest Gross, Iv

Srinivas Neginhal

Aayush Saxena

Aravinda Kidambi Srinivasan

Shekhar Chandrashekhar

Mart Haitjema

Certain embodiments described herein are generally directed to techniques for computing grouping object memberships in a network. Embodiments include receiving a plurality of network configuration updates. Embodiments include identifying delta updates to a plurality of grouping objects based on the plurality of configuration updates. Embodiments include determining a parallel processing arrangement for the delta updates based on dependencies in a directed graph comprising representations of the plurality of grouping objects. Embodiments include processing the delta updates according to the parallel processing arrangement in order to determine memberships of the plurality of grouping objects. Embodiments include distributing one or more updates to one or more endpoints based on the memberships of the plurality of grouping objects.

Differential dataflow approach for computing grouping membership in network controllers

Disclosed is a technique for communicating message objects from a first process to a second process in transport node of a virtualized network, the message objects specifying a change to status of a virtualized network object in the virtualized network. In technique, message objects are separated from operation objects, which have fields corresponding to the fields of the message objects, a field of the operations object being capable of specifying a change to or a status of a field of the message object to which it corresponds. Yet another object combines a message object and an operation object so that the protocol for communication between the first and second process is the same regardless of the contents of the actual message.

Extensible systematic representation of objects and operations applied to them

Described herein are systems, methods, and software to capture packets of interest in a virtual switch. In one implementation, a method of capturing packets of interest in a virtual switch includes identifying a request to capture packets associated with first packet attributes. The method further includes, in response to the request, assigning a virtual port for forwarding the packets associated with the first packet attributes, and implementing a forwarding rule in the virtual switch to forward the packets associated with the first packet attributes to at least the virtual port. The method further provides for directing traffic over the virtual switch using the forwarding rule.

Capturing packets in a virtual switch

A method of suppressing ARP packets in a logical network comprising a set of data compute nodes (DCNs). The DCNs are hosted on a set of physical hosts. Each DCN has a protocol address and is connected to a forwarding elements (FE) on the corresponding host. Each FE has a set of flows that specifies a set of conditions to match a set of fields of each received packet and a set of actions to take on a packet that matches the set of conditions. An FE on a physical host receives a packet sent by a first DCN on the physical host and determines that the received packet is an ARP request packet by matching a set of fields in the packet with a set of conditions of a particular flow. The ARP request packet identifies a protocol address of a second DCN on the logical network. The PFE utilizes the actions specified by the particular flow to determine a corresponding hardware address for the target protocol address by searching an address-mapping table that maps the protocol address of each DCN to a corresponding hardware address. The PFE converts the ARP request packet to an ARP reply packet utilizing the set of actions specified by the particular flow, the ARP reply packet comprising the determined target address as a resolution of the ARP request. The PFE sends the ARP reply packet to the first DCN without broadcasting the ARP request to any DCNs on the logical network.

Address resolution protocol suppression using a flow-based forwarding element

A composite database containing virtualized objects of a transport node in a virtualized network, and methods pertaining thereto is disclosed. The composite database supports each of many clients having their own database values. The composite database is formed by augmenting a key-value database to have an augmented key that comprises an original key, indicating the type of object stored, concatenated with a list of database identifiers. The composite database stores at the augmented key, values of objects in the database that pertain to each database identifier in the augmented key, where each object is in serialized form. Accessing the database includes scanning the database for a list of augmented key-value pairs containing a given key. Getting a database record includes specifying a key and a database identifier. The list of augmented key-value pairs is searched for the record having the specified database identifier.

Efficient physical key-value scheme for persisting virtual database data

Some embodiments provide a novel method for installing flows of a desired network state in an actualized network state of a managed forwarding element. In some embodiments, the method maintains a flow output table based on flow events received from a computation engine for computing desired state, and from a set of managed forwarding elements on which the computed desired state is installed. The method of some embodiments then installs flows on the set of managed forwarding elements based on the flow output table.

Method and mechanism for efficiently managing flows

The present disclosure generally relates to an encoding scheme, and more specifically to a stable encoding scheme that is both variable-length and order-preserving. The present disclosure further describes a decoding scheme to decode and encoding generated by the encoding scheme. The encoding scheme may be parameterized by a single parameter k which remains constant across encoding and corresponding decoding operations. The output encodings generated by the encoding scheme are variable-length while maintaining order.

Stable variable-length order-preserving encoding scheme

Described herein are systems, methods, and software to reduce data plane disruption during a startup event for a virtual switch controller. In one example, during a startup event, applications are initiated on a virtual switch controller to configure the virtual switch. Once initiated, an application, which depends on one or more other applications, may hold configuration operations until notifications are received from the one or more other applications operating on the virtual switch controller. Once the notifications are received, the application may resume the required configuration operations.

Reducing data plane disruption in a virtual switch

A method of collecting statistics for a set of logical entities associated with a flow-based managed forwarding element. A statistics collection flow table is created for collecting statistics for logical entities. For each pair of logical entity and collected statistics type, a flow entry is added to the statistics collection flow table and includes a matching criteria for matching the identification the logical entity and the type of the statistics collected by the flow entry. When a particular statistics for a logical entity is to be updated during the processing of a packet by a flow table, the packet is submitted by the flow table to the statistics collection flow table. The statistics are updated for the logical entity by matching the identification of the logical entity and the particular statistics type with the matching criteria of a flow entry in the statistics collection flow table.

Method to reduce packet statistics churn

Described herein are systems, methods, and software to enhance inline processing of data packets by a virtual switch. In at least one implementation, a virtual switch receives a data packet and initiates a flow process with a plurality of flow operations on the data packet. In a flow operation of the plurality of flow operations, the virtual switch will determine whether the data packet qualifies for a learn action and, if the packet fails to qualify, forwards the data packet to a next flow operation in the plurality of flow operations, and if the packet does qualify, applies the learn action and forwards the data packet to a next flow operation.

Inline processing of learn actions in a virtual switch

Some embodiments provide a method for a managed forwarding element that operates on a host machine to process packets for at least one logical network. The method receives a packet that includes a particular piece of data to maintain with the packet. The particular piece of data is not stored in a payload of the packet and is not protocol-specific data. The method stores the particular piece of data in a register while processing the packet. The method identifies a next destination of the packet that operates on the host machine. The method generates an object to represent the packet for the identified destination. The particular piece of data is stored in a field of the generated object.

Growing community of inventors

Union City, CA, United States of America

Harold Vinson C Lim