Vmware, Inc.

Yuxiao Zhang

Raju Koganty

Pierluigi Rolando

Rahul Mishra

Kantesh Mundaragi

Jayant Jain

Akhila Naveen

Srinivas Ramaswamy

Mani Kancherla

Rajeev Nair

Saahil Gokhale

Camille Lecuyer

Krishna Chaitanya Bandi

Hui Zheng

Elton Furtado

Jayakrishnan Chathu

Subramanyam Manuguri

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

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 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 configure an edge forwarding element to perform service insertion operations to identify stateful services to perform for data messages received for forwarding by the edge forwarding element at multiple virtual interfaces of the edge forwarding element. The service insertion operation, in some embodiments, includes applying a set of service insertion rules. The service insertion rules (1) specify a set of criteria and a corresponding action to take for data messages matching the criteria and (2) are associated with a set of interfaces to which the service insertion rules are applied. In some embodiments, the action is specified using a universally unique identifier (UUID) that is then used as a matching criteria for a subsequent policy lookup that identifies a type of service insertion and a set of next hop data.

Using applied-to field to identify connection-tracking records for different interfaces

Some embodiments provide stateful services in a chain of services identified for some data messages. The edge forwarding element receives a data message at a particular interface of the edge forwarding element that is traversing the edge forwarding element in a forward direction between two machines. The edge forwarding element identifies (1) a set of stateful services for the received data message and (2) a next hop associated with the identified set of stateful services in the forward direction and a next hop associated with the identified set of stateful services in the reverse direction. Based on the identified set of services and the next hops for the forward and reverse directions, the edge forwarding element generates and stores first and second connection tracking records for the forward and reverse data message flows, respectively used to forward data messages received subsequently for the flow.

Generating forward and reverse direction connection-tracking records for service paths at a network edge

Some embodiments facilitate the provision of a service reachable at a virtual internet protocol (VIP) address. The VIP address is used by clients to access a set of service nodes in the logical network. Facilitating the provision of the service, in some embodiments, includes returning a serviced data message to a load balancer that selected a service node to provide the service for the load balancer to track the state of the connection using the service logical forwarding element. To use the service logical forwarding element, some embodiments configure an egress datapath of the service nodes to intercept the serviced data message before being forwarded to a logical forwarding element in the datapath from the client to the service node, and determine if the serviced data message requires routing by the routing service provided as a service by the edge forwarding element.

Using router as service node through logical service plane

Some embodiments provide a method of performing stateful services that keeps track of changes to states of service nodes to update connection tracker records when necessary. At least one global state value indicating a state of the service nodes is maintained at the edge device. The method generates a record in a connection tracker storage including the current global state value as a flow state value for a first data message in a data message flow. Each time a data message is received for the data message flow, the stored state value (i.e., a flow state value) is compared to the relevant global state value to determine if the stored action may have been updated. After a change in the global state value relevant to the flow the method examines a flow programming table to determine if the flow has been affected by a flow programming instruction(s) that caused the global state value to change.

Updating connection-tracking records at a network edge using flow programming

Example methods and systems for failure handling for service chaining with service path monitoring. One example may comprise a first computer system detecting a data packet that is being forwarded along a first service path. The first computer system may configure a liveness check query and send the liveness check query along with the data packet towards a service virtualized computing instance to cause a liveness check response. In response to detecting the liveness check response from the service virtualized computing instance, the first computer system may determine that the service virtualized computing instance is available. Otherwise, report information may be generated and sent to trigger a switch from the first service path to a second service path that excludes the service virtualized computing instance.

Service chaining with service path monitoring

For traffic exiting a logical network through a particular VTI, some embodiments perform a service classification operation for different data messages to identify different VTIs that connect the edge forwarding element to a service node to provide services required by the data messages. Each data message, in some embodiments, is then forwarded to the identified VTI to receive the required service. The identified VTI does not perform a service classification operation. The service node then returns the serviced data message to the edge forwarding element. In some embodiments, the identified VTI is not configured to perform the service classification operation and is instead configured to mark all traffic directed to the edge forwarding element as having been serviced. The marked serviced data message is received at the edge forwarding element and forwarded to a destination of the data message through the particular VTI.

Providing services at the edge of a network using selected virtual tunnel interfaces

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 proxy operations

Example methods and systems for connectivity check with service insertion have been disclosed. One example may comprise a computer system receiving a connectivity check packet that is injected for forwarding along a service path between a source virtualized computing instance and a destination virtualized computing instance. In response to detecting a connectivity issue associated with the service path, first report information identifying the first service virtualized computing instance and an observation that the connectivity check packet is dropped may be generated and sent. Otherwise, the connectivity check packet may be forwarded towards a second virtualized computing instance, being a next-hop on the service path, or the destination virtualized computing instance. Second report information identifying the first service virtualized computing instance and an observation that the connectivity check packet is forwarded may be generated and sent.

Growing community of inventors

Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Yuxiao Zhang