Cisco Technology, Inc.

Vmware, Inc.

Avi Networks

Tandem Computers Incorporated

Murali Basavaiah

Ranganathan Rajagopalan

Kiron Haltore

Anand Girish Parthasarathy

Sreeram Iyer

Varagur Chandrasekaran

Narasimhan Gomatam Mandeyam

Robert L Jardine

Srinivasa D Murthy

Sambit Kumar Das

Raghavendra J Rao

Karoor S Krishnakumar

Samar Sharma

Sameer Merchant

Ramkumar Sankar

Abhijeet Joglekar

Prasad Rao

Urshit Parikh

Arpakorn Boonkongchuen

Magesh Sampath Iyengar

Anand Parthasarthy

Shyam Prasad Anisetti

Naveen Dhillon

David P Thompson

Thomas James Edsall

Silvano Gai

Dinesh Ganapathy Dutt

Sanjay Sane

Subrata Banerjee

Timothy J Kuik

John Andrew Fingerhut

Gaurav Rastogi

Chandramouli Radhakrishnan

Chao Feng

Ashish K Dalela

Shashank Gupta

Parthiban Munusamy

Sriram Chidambaram

Sreeram Parameswara Iyer

Joseph D Kinkade

Larry D Reeves

Gary F Campbell

Naveen Pethandlahally Narayan Gowda

Subramaniam Venkata Kalambur

Timothy Kujk

Sandeep Yadav

Stephen DeGroote

Satish Ambati

Ravindra Kumar Tholiya

Garry Easop

Sampath Magesh Iyengar

Karoor S Krishnakuma

Srinivas Sastry

Magesh Iyengar

Varagur V Chandrasekaran

Stephen Degroote

David Thompson

Some embodiments provide a two-tier DNS (Domain Name System) service for processing DNS requests. In some embodiments, the two-tier DNS service deploys first and second tiers of service machines, with the second-tier having several groups of service machines each of which is configured to resolve DNS requests for a different set of domain names than the other second-tier group(s). Each service machine in the first-tier is configured to identify the second-tier group responsible for each particular DNS request that the service machine receives for each particular domain name, and to forward the particular DNS request to the second-tier group that it identifies for the particular DNS request. The first-tier DNS service in some embodiments has only one group of service machines. Each first or second service machine group in some embodiments can have one or more service machines, and can be scaled up or down to add or remove service machines to the group (e.g., through an active/active layer 3 scaleout with BGP). In some embodiments, two different second-tier service groups can process DNS requests for two or more different FQDNs (fully qualified domain names) that are part of the same domain, and/or for two or more different FQDNs that are part of different domains.

Two tier DNS

Some embodiments provide a novel method of performing health monitoring for resources associated with a global server load balancing (GSLB) system. This system is implemented by several domain name system (DNS) servers that perform DNS services for resources located at several geographically separate sites. The method identifies several different groupings of the resources. It then assigns the health monitoring of the different resource groups to different DNS servers. The method then configures each particular DNS server (1) to send health monitoring messages to the particular group of resources assigned to the particular DNS server, (2) to generate data by analyzing responses to the sent health monitoring messages, and (3) to distribute the generated data to the other DNS servers. The method in some embodiments is performed by a set of one or more controllers.

Partitioning health monitoring in a global server load balancing system

Providing a distributed network service includes: receiving network traffic at a first physical device; and executing a service engine to participate in the distributed network service. The distributed network service is provided to at least the first target application instance executing in a first VM on the first physical device, and a second target application instance executing in a second VM on a second physical device; and a shared state of the distributed network service is maintained with respect to the first physical device and the second physical device.

Distributed network services

Migrating a network service that is currently being performed by a first device to be performed by a second device includes: instructing the second device to notify an upstream network device to forward traffic that is to be serviced by the network service to the second device instead of to the first device, the network service being associated with an Internet Protocol (IP) address; and instructing the first device to migrate the network service to the second device, wherein the migration includes moving or copying state information associated with an existing flow currently serviced by the first device to the second device; the existing flow being an existing flow between a client application and a network application.

Transparent network service migration across service devices

An example method of performing an upgrade operation for a distributed service in a virtualized computing system is described. The virtualized computing system includes a host cluster, the host cluster having hosts and a virtualization layer executing on hardware platforms of the hosts. The method includes: receiving, at a controller of the distributed service, a first upgrade operation from a user, the distributed service including the controller and a plurality of service engine groups, each of the plurality of service engine groups including a plurality of service engines; and performing, by the controller, the first upgrade operation on software of the controller exclusive of software of the service engines in each of the service engine groups, the software of the controller and the software of the plurality of service engines in each of the plurality of service engine groups executing in a plurality of hosts.

Upgrade of a distributed service in a virtualized computing system

Network session identification information is received. The network session identification information is associated with a destination IP address and a destination network port. An available source network port for a new session to be established for a source IP address is determined based on the destination IP address and the destination network port.

Increased port address space

A method for evaluating health of a distributed network service environment (DNSE) includes determining an application performance measurement (APM) based at least in part on performance metrics (PM) associated with sources, where the sources are associated with the DNSE. The sources include service engine(s) and servers. At least some of the servers are configured to provide a distributed application, and the service engine(s) are configured to provide the servers with a network service and collect at least a part of the PM. The method includes determining a health risk of the DNSE based at least in part on risk parameters obtained by the service engine(s). The method includes combining the APM and the health risk of the DNSE to determine a health indicator. If the indicator indicates a change of the DNSE, a notification of the change is generated. The method includes outputting the notification of the change.

Distributed network service risk monitoring and scoring

In a network with at least a first device already configured to provide a network service to a network application, scaling service capacity includes: configuring one or more second devices to provide the network service to the network application. In embodiments where an upstream network device supports Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) routing, the upstream network device is configured, including storing a plurality of paths to reach an address associated with a network application, wherein the plurality of paths are equal in cost. In embodiments where the upstream network device does not support ECMP routing, the second device is configured not to respond to an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request associated with an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the network application, and the first device is instructed to perform load balancing on network traffic destined for the network application among the first device and the one or more second devices.

Transparent network-services elastic scale-out

Managing network ports is disclosed. Network session identification information is received. The network session identification information is associated with a destination IP address and a destination network port. An available source network port is determined using a data structure that is based on the destination IP address and the destination network port.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Murali Basavaiah