Vmware, Inc.

Nicira, Inc.

Extreme Networks, Inc.

Raju Koganty

Jayant Jain

Pierluigi Rolando

Rahul Mishra

Kantesh Mundaragi

Akhila Naveen

Fenil Kavathia

Chidambareswaran Raman

Anirban Sengupta

Yong Feng

Anuprem Chalvadi

Yang Ping

Rajeev Nair

Shadab Shah

Stephen Tan

Hua Wang

Donghai Han

Jianjun Shen

Xinhua Hong

Xin Wang

Serge Maskalik

Subrahmanyam Manuguri

Rick Lund

Jingmin Zhou

Chi-Hsiang Su

Yusheng Wang

Mohan Parthasarathy

Abhishek Goliya

Mani Kancherla

Srinivas Nimmagadda

Mayank Agarwal

Allwyn M Sequeira

Yuxiao Zhang

Camille Lecuyer

Saahil Gokhale

Xin Qi

Li Sun

Yanjun Lin

Alex Nhu

Gurudutt Maiya Belur

Srinivas Ramaswamy

Chandran Anjur Narasimhan

Vikas Kamath

Qiong Wang

Da Wan

Medhavi Dhawan

Ziyou Wang

Danting Liu

Wenyu Zhang

Nick G Suizo

Sunitha Krishna

Jeremy Olmsted-Thompson

Russell Lu

Zihong Lu

Benli Ye

Raj Nagarajan

Jingfeng Zhang

Wolfgang Lochner

Anil Villait

Krishna Chaitanya Bandi

Nishant Jain

Govind Raj Desur

Jeff Ronne

Prabhat Tripathi

Suresh Ramamurthy

Allison Marks

Yasar Khan

Elton Furtado

Jayakrishnan Chathu

Subramanyam Manuguri

Hui Zheng

Yangyang Zhu

Mary Firenze

Sandra Yu

An example method of packet processing in a host cluster of a virtualized computing system includes: receiving traffic at packet processing software of a hypervisor executing on a host of the host cluster; processing the traffic using a network service of the packet processing software in the hypervisor; redirecting the traffic to a service virtual machine (VM) in the host cluster through a virtual network interface card (vNIC) of the service VM; sending metadata from the network service of the packet processing software to the service VM; processing the traffic and the metadata through at least one network service executing in the service VM; returning the traffic from the service VM to the packet processing software of the hypervisor; and forwarding, by the packet processing software, the traffic to a destination.

Deploying network security services in a virtualized computing system

A novel method for dynamic network service allocation that maps generic services into specific configurations of service resources in a network is provided. An application that is assigned to be performed by computing resources in the network is associated with a set of generic services, and the method maps the set of generic services to the service resources based on the assignment of the application to the computing resources. The mapping of generic services is further based on a level of service that is chosen for the application, where the set of generic services are mapped to different sets of network resources according to different levels of services.

Provisioning network services in a software defined data center

A software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) environment that leverages network virtualization management deployment is provided. Edge security services managed by the network virtualization management deployment are made available in the SD-WAN environment. Cloud gateways forward SD-WAN traffic to managed service nodes to apply security services. Network traffic is encapsulated with corresponding metadata to ensure that services can be performed according to the desired policy. Point-to-point tunnels are established between cloud gateways and the managed service nodes to transport the metadata to the managed service nodes using an overlay logical network. Virtual network identifiers (VNIs) in the metadata are used by the managed service nodes to identify tenants/policies. A managed service node receiving a packet uses provider service routers (T0-SR) and tenant service routers (T1-SRs) based on the VNI to apply the prescribed services for the tenant, and the resulting traffic is returned to the cloud gateway that originated the traffic.

Network management services in a virtual network

Some embodiments provide novel methods for performing services for machines operating in one or more datacenters. For instance, for a group of related guest machines (e.g., a group of tenant machines), some embodiments define two different forwarding planes: (I) a guest forwarding plane and (2) a service forwarding plane. The guest forwarding plane connects to the machines in the group and performs L2 and/or L3 forwarding for these machines. The service forwarding plane (1) connects to the service nodes that perform services on data messages sent to and from these machines, and (2) forwards these data messages to the service nodes. In some embodiments, the guest machines do not connect directly with the service forwarding plane.

Providing services with guest VM mobility

Some embodiments of the invention provide novel methods for providing transparent services for multicast data messages traversing a network edge device operating at a boundary between two networks. The method analyzes data messages received at the network edge device to determine whether they require a service provided at the boundary and whether they are unicast or multicast (including broadcast). The method modifies a multicast destination media access control (MAC) address of a multicast data message requiring a service to be a unicast destination MAC address and provides, without processing by a standard routing function, the modified data message directly to an interface associated with a service node that provides the particular service required by the data message. The method receives the serviced data message, restores the multicast destination MAC address, and forwards the serviced data message to a set of destinations associated with the multicast destination address.

Service insertion for multicast traffic at boundary

Some embodiments provide a method for configuring a gateway machine in a datacenter. The method receives a definition of a logical network for implementation in the datacenter. The logical network includes at least one logical switch to which logical network endpoints attach and a logical router for handling data traffic between the logical network endpoints in the datacenter and an external network. The method receives configuration data attaching a third-party service to at least one interface of the logical router via an additional logical switch designated for service attachments. The third-party service is for performing non-forwarding processing on the data traffic between the logical network endpoints and the external network. The method configures the gateway machine in the datacenter to implement the logical router and redirect at least a subset of the data traffic between the logical network endpoints and the external network to the attached third-party service.

Service insertion at logical network gateway

In an embodiment, a method for a VRF and multi-service insertion on edge gateways is described. In an embodiment, the method comprises obtaining a rule configuration. Based on, at least in part, the rule configuration, a rule table is created. The rule table comprises rule data records, wherein a rule data record comprises packet attributes and a redirection identifier. A policy configuration comprising policy records is obtained. Each policy record comprises a redirection identifier, a next_hop, and an address pair for interfaces. A mapping between VRF identifiers and address pairs is generated. Based on, at least in part, the mapping and the policy configuration, a policy table is generated. The policy table comprises table records, wherein a table record comprises a redirection identifier, a next_hop, and an address pair. The rule and policy tables are used to redirect a packet from an edge gateway to a service virtual machine.

Multi-VRF and multi-service insertion on edge gateway virtual machines

Some embodiments provide a method for clustering a set of data compute nodes (DCNs), which communicate with each other more frequently, on one or more host machines. The method groups together guest DCNs (GDCNs) that (1) execute on different host machines and (2) exchange network data among themselves more frequently, in order to reduce interhost network traffic. The more frequently-communicating GDCNs can be a set of GDCNs that implement a distributed application, GDCNs of a particular tier in a multi-tier network architecture (e.g., a web tier in a three-tier architecture), GDCNs that are dedicated to a particular tenant in a hosting system, or any other set of GDCNs that exchange data among each other regularly for a particular purpose.

Monitoring and optimizing interhost network traffic

Some embodiments provide a novel method for performing services on a host computer that executes several data compute nodes (DCNs). The method receives, at a module executing on the host, a data message associated with a DCN executing on the host. The method supplies the data message to a service virtual machine (SVM) that executes on the host and on which several service containers execute. One or more of the service containers then perform a set of one or more services on the data message. The method then receives an indication from the SVM that the set of services has been performed on the data message.

Performing services on a host

Some embodiments provide novel methods for providing a set of services for a logical network associated with an edge forwarding element acting between a logical network and an external network. In some embodiments, the services are provided using a logical service forwarding plane that connects the edge forwarding element to a set of service nodes that each provide a service in the set of services. The service classification operation of some embodiments identifies a chain of multiple service operations that has to be performed on the data message. In some embodiments, identifying the chain of service operations includes selecting a service path to provide the multiple services. After selecting the service path, the data message is sent along the selected service path to have the services provided. The data message is returned to the edge forwarding element by a last service node in the service path that performs the last service operation and the edge forwarding element performs next hop forwarding on the data message.

Using service planes to perform services at the edge of a network

Some embodiments provide a method for efficient data message transfer across a hypervisor, service DCN, and containers implementing partner network services. The method allocates memory to a service DCN that operates a set of containers for providing partner network services for data messages received by the service DCN. The service DCN and the containers share the allocated memory and the method stores data messages received by the service DCN in the allocated memory. The method then accesses the data message stored in the shared memory from a set of partner network service containers to perform the partner network services. In some embodiments, the host machine or a process of the host machine on which the service DCN executes also shares the allocated memory. The host machine process, in some embodiments is a kernel process.

Providing shared memory for access by multiple network service containers executing on single service machine

Some embodiments provide novel methods for providing different types of services for a logical network associated with an edge forwarding element acting between the logical network and an external network. The edge forwarding element receives data messages for forwarding and performs a service classification operation to select a set of services of a particular type for the data message. The particular type of service is one of multiple types of services that use different transport mechanisms to forward the data to a set of service nodes (e.g., service virtual machines, or service appliances, etc.) that provide the service. The edge forwarding element receives the data message after the selected set of services has been performed and performs a forwarding operation to forward the data message. In some embodiments, the method is also performed by edge forwarding elements that are at the edges of logical network segments within the logical network.

Using multiple transport mechanisms to provide services at the edge of a network

Some embodiments provide a method for performing services for data messages associated with a machine executing on a particular host computer. On the particular host computer, the method configures (1) a first distributed forwarding element (DFE) to forward data messages sent by the machine based on network addresses specified by machine, and (2) a second DFE to forward data messages sent by the machine to a set of one or more other host computers on which a set of one or more service nodes before the data messages are returned to the particular host computer to be forwarded by the first DFE based on the network addresses specified by the machine. Each DFE is implemented by at least one software forwarding element executing (SFE) on the particular host computer and at least one other SFE executing on at least one other host computer.

Some embodiments provide novel methods for performing services for machines operating in one or more datacenters. For instance, for a group of related guest machines (e.g., a group of tenant machines), some embodiments define two different forwarding planes: (1) a guest forwarding plane and (2) a service forwarding plane. The guest forwarding plane connects to the machines in the group and performs L2 and/or L3 forwarding for these machines. The service forwarding plane (1) connects to the service nodes that perform services on data messages sent to and from these machines, and (2) forwards these data messages to the service nodes. In some embodiments, the guest machines do not connect directly with the service forwarding plane. For instance, in some embodiments, each forwarding plane connects to a machine or service node through a port that receives data messages from, or supplies data messages to, the machine or service node. In such embodiments, the service forwarding plane does not have a port that directly receives data messages from, or supplies data messages to, any guest machine. Instead, in some such embodiments, data associated with a guest machine is routed to a port proxy module executing on the same host computer, and this other module has a service plane port. This port proxy module in some embodiments indirectly can connect more than one guest machine on the same host to the service plane (i.e., can serve as the port proxy module for more than one guest machine on the same host).

Service path generation in load balanced manner

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Raju Koganty