Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Luis M Hernandez

Pankaj Garg

Alireza Dabagh

Sandeep Singhal

Robert C Combs

Sambhrama Madhusudhan Mundkur

Onur Feliz

Multi-tenant network stack techniques are described. In an implementation, a host instantiates an instance of virtual machine that is configured to serve networks service to multiple tenants and corresponding virtual networks. To do so, a framing layer of the virtual machine may be configured to obtain configuration data indicative of topology for a multi-tenant virtual networking environment from a virtual switch of a host device. The framing layer uses the configuration data to construct routing compartments and interfaces as abstractions of each virtual network in accordance with the topology. The routing compartments are isolated from each other and provide a mechanism for applications to process network input/output (I/O) in the context of a specific tenant or virtual network. The single virtual machine is able to provide services and applications to serve multiple tenants that are independent of the underlying virtualization technology.

Multi-tenant network stack

An extensible virtual switch allows virtual machines to communicate with one another and optionally with other physical devices via a network. The extensible virtual switch includes an extensibility protocol binding, allowing different extensions to be added to the extensible virtual switch. The extensible virtual switch also includes a miniport driver on which the extensions are loaded, tying the lifetimes of the extensions to the lifetime of the extensible virtual switch.

Virtual switch extensibility

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Luis M Hernandez