International Business Machines Corporation

Robert P Monaco

Robert K Floyd, Iii

Baiju Dhirajlal Mandalia

Mahesh Viswanathan

Joseph D Robinson

Sean Donnellan

Holger Mueller

An approach for regional firewall clustering for optimal state-sharing of different sites in a virtualized/networked (e.g., cloud) computing environment is provided. In a typical embodiment, each firewall in a given region is informed of its peer firewalls via a registration process with a centralized server. Each firewall opens up an Internet protocol (IP)-based communication channel to each of its peers in the region to share state table information. This allows for asymmetrical firewall flows through the network and allows routing protocols to ascertain the best path to a given destination without having to take firewall placement into consideration.

Regional firewall clustering in a networked computing environment

A method and associated systems of automatic notification of isolation of a first networked device. In response to detecting that it is not being properly managed by a network-management means, the first networked device creates a notification message that identifies the problem and requests proper network management. The device then transmits this message to any other device or networked node that it can communicate with, along with a request that recipients try to forward the message to the network-management means. If a device that receives the message is able to forward the message successfully, the network-management means takes appropriate steps to begin properly managing the first networked device.

Automatic notification of isolation

To provision a secure customer domain in a virtualized multi-tenant environment, a virtual machine (VM) is configured for a customer in the customer domain. A first, second, and third virtual network interfaces (VNICs) are configured in the VM. The first VNIC has a first network address within a first address range selected for the customer domain and enables an application on the VM to access a second application in a second VM in the customer domain. The second VNIC enables a third application outside the customer domain to access the VM in the customer domain. The second VNIC is configured to use an addressing specification used by a server of the third application. The third VNIC enables access from the first application to a fourth application executing outside the customer domain. The third VNIC is configured to use an addressing specification used by a server of the fourth application.

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Croton, NY, United States of America

Robert P Monaco