Vmware, Inc.

Yong Feng

Raju Koganty

Pierluigi Rolando

Fenil Kavathia

Jayant Jain

Akhila Naveen

Anuprem Chalvadi

Yang Ping

Rahul Mishra

Kantesh Mundaragi

Li Sun

Yanjun Lin

Jianjun Shen

Medhavi Dhawan

Ziyou Wang

Mary Firenze

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 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

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

Configuring distributed forwarding for performing service chain operations

Creating and distributing service chain descriptions

Specifying service chains

Providing services by using multiple service planes

The disclosure provides an approach for computing service paths for a service chain identifying a sequence of services. One method includes including information about a plurality of hosts in a heap. Each of the plurality of hosts includes at least one service virtual computing instance (SVCI) configured to provide at least one of the services of the service chain. The information includes, for each of the plurality of hosts, a number of service paths computed for the service chain at the host and one of a number of services provided by unused SVCIs of the host or a number of consecutive services provided by unused SVCIs of the host. The method further includes selecting a host from the heap based on the information. The method further includes generating a first service path for the service chain, the first service path identifying at least one SVCI of the selected host.

Service path computation for service insertion

Specifying and distributing service chains

Some embodiments provide a method for forwarding a data message. The method performs a lookup to map a set of header fields of the data message to an identifier corresponding to a service that performs non-forwarding processing on data messages. The method uses a dynamically-updated data structure for the identifier to retrieve instructions for forwarding data messages to the service. The method forwards the data message according to the retrieved instructions from the data structure for the identifier.

Redirection of data messages at logical network gateway

Some embodiments provide a method for assigning different service path identifiers to each of a set of different service paths along each of which a same set of service operations are performed on a set of packets. The method retrieves an available service path identifier from an identifier storage that stores service path identifiers for multiple service paths. The method generates a set of proposed service path identifiers based on the retrieved available service path identifier and the number of service paths in the set of service paths. The method performs a write operation on the identifier storage based on the set of proposed service path identifiers, and based on a determination that the write operation was successful, assigns the set of proposed service path identifiers to the set of service paths. Based on the set of service path identifiers, the method forwards the set of packets along the set of service paths.

Service path identifier allocation in service insertion

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Yong Feng