Arista Networks, Inc.

Arista Netwroks, Inc.

Ian McCloghrie

Alton Lo

Navdeep Bhatia

Akshay K Gattani

Siva Narayanan

A method for supporting virtual machine (VM) mobility between network devices connected to a network includes: selecting a first type of route for interconnecting VMs that are connected to the network devices; and adding a feature of a second type of route to the first type of route to enable the network devices to execute proxy address resolution protocol (ARP) for transmitting network traffic between the VMs without requiring each of the network devices to store a physical address of each of the VMs in respective ones of a network address table.

Host routing with virtual machine mobility

A first network device for a first virtual network identifier (VNI) domain may be coupled to a second network device for a second VNI domain via an interconnect network. When serving as the downstream network device for processing network traffic from the first VNI domain to the second VNI domain, the second network device may perform remote VNI to local VNI translation for the network traffic, thereby facilitating proper network traffic handling even in network configurations in which the first network device is not configured to perform downstream VNI translation. If desired, instead of or in addition to performing VNI translation for its own VNI domain, the second network device may serve as a service device to perform VNI translation for a third VNI domain.

Virtual network identifier translation

A system and method for provisionally authenticating a host moving from one router to another router in a network using border gateway protocol (BGP) is disclosed. A host is initially authenticated at a first BGP router, this discovery is advertised to a second BGP router pursuant to BGP with a new extended community indicating successful authentication (or pre-authentication) of the host at the first BGP router. An indication for re-authentication of the host at the second BGP router is then received, which blocks network traffic from the host to the second BGP router. Due to the notification of a previous authentication of the host, the second BGP router begins a provisional authentication session. In response to a successful completion of the provisional authentication session, the host is authorized to transmit network traffic on the second BGP router and subsequently blocked from doing the same at the first BGP router.

MAC mobility for 802.1x addresses for virtual machines

A system and method for provisionally authenticating a host moving from a source port of a switch device to a destination port of the switch device is disclosed. The host is initially authenticated at the source port and blocked from forwarding network traffic at the destination port. During a provisional authentication session, an authentication agent executing on the switch intercepts one or more authentication packets sourced by the host and headed for the destination port of the switch device and redirects the authentication packets to an authentication server for validating the host at the destination port of the switch device. The switch device removes the block at the destination port in response to receiving an acknowledgment of successful authentication at the destination port from the authentication server.

MAC mobility for 802.1x addresses for physical machines

A method for initializing the border gateway protocol (BGP) on network devices. The method includes predicting, by the network device, using a set of prediction heuristics, a first possible internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) address of a first peer network device. The method further includes sending, by the network device, a first neighbor discovery protocol (NDP) request for the first possible IPv6 address, and receiving, by the network device, from the first peer network device, in response to the NDP request, a first media access control (MAC) address. The method also includes establishing, after receiving the first MAC address, a BGP session with the first peer network device and exchanging route updates with the first peer network device, and processing a packet. The processing of the packet is delayed until the first MAC address is received.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Ian McCloghrie