Vmware, Inc.

Nicira, Inc.

Tori Chen

Arnold Poon

Arijit Chanda

Sirisha Myneni

Rajiv Krishnamurthy

Farzad Ghannadian

Venkat Rajagopalan

Some embodiments of the invention provide a novel architecture for providing context-aware middlebox services at the edge of a physical datacenter. In some embodiments, the middlebox service engines run in an edge host (e.g., an NSX Edge) that provides routing services and connectivity to external networks (e.g., networks external to an NSX-T deployment). Some embodiments use a novel architecture for capturing contextual attributes on host computers that execute one or more machines and providing the captured contextual attributes to context-aware middlebox service engines providing the context-aware middlebox services. In some embodiments, a context header insertion processor uses contextual attributes to generate a header including data regarding the contextual attributes (a 'context header') that is used to encapsulate a data message that is processed by the SFE and sent to the context-aware middlebox service engine.

Context aware middlebox services at datacenter edges

Some embodiments of the invention provide a novel architecture for capturing contextual attributes on host computers that execute one or more machines and providing the captured contextual attributes to middlebox service engines executing at the edge of a physical datacenter. In some embodiments, the middlebox service engines run in an edge host (e.g., an NSX Edge) that provides routing services and connectivity to external networks (e.g., networks external to an NSX-T deployment). Some embodiments execute a context header insertion processor that receives contextual attributes relating to network events and/or process events on the machines collected using a guest-introspection (GI) agent on each machine. In some embodiments, the context header insertion processor uses these contextual attributes to generate a header including data regarding the contextual attributes (a 'context header') that is used to encapsulate a data message that is processed by the SFE.

Context aware middlebox services at datacenter edge

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method for performing services on an endpoint machine in a datacenter. On the endpoint machine, the method installs a guest introspection (GI) agent and a service engine. In some embodiments, the GI agent and the service engine are part of one monitor agent that is installed on the endpoint machine. The method then registers with a set of one or more notification services on the endpoint machine, the GI agent to receive notifications regarding new data message flow events on the endpoint machine. Through the notifications, the GI agent captures contextual data items regarding new data message flows, and stores the captured contextual data items. The service engine then performs a service for the data message flow based on the captured contextual data.

Performing services on data messages associated with endpoint machines

Performing process control services on endpoint machines

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Tori Chen