WO2016062085A1

WO2016062085A1 - Virtual network realization method, nve and nva device and system

Info

Publication number: WO2016062085A1
Application number: PCT/CN2015/079615
Authority: WO
Inventors: 顾忠禹
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2014-10-21
Filing date: 2015-05-22
Publication date: 2016-04-28
Also published as: CN105591865A

Abstract

Provided are a virtual network realization method, NVE and NVA device and system. The method comprises: establishing a TCP connection between a network virtualization edge (NVE) and a network virtualization authority (NVA), and running a virtual network transport protocol (VNTP) on the TCP connection; the NVE transmits routing update information of the VN to the NVA via the VNTP; and the VNA forwards the routing update information of the VN to all the other NVEs thereof, thus solving the problem of higher requirements and complicated protocol on the virtual network realization, and lowering the realization condition of the virtual network.

Description

Virtual network implementation method, NVE, NVA device and system

Technical field

The present invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular to a method, a NVE, an NVA device and a system for implementing a virtual network.

Background technique

In the data center, how to provide a virtual network (Virtual Network, referred to as VN) is a hot topic, involving many aspects such as virtualization of the network, causing concern of equipment suppliers and operators. For example, a Network Virtualization Overlay based-on L3 Network (NVO3) was established in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a virtual network provided in the related art. As shown in FIG. 1 , the NVO3 architecture network has a centralized network virtualization control device (NVA) to implement service control. Multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) in the VN are connected to the Network Virtualization Edge (NVE) and further cooperate with the Virtual Route Forwarding function of the VN in the NVE (Virtual Routing and Forwarding (referred to as VRF) is associated. Different VRFs of the same VN in different NVEs are connected through the NVE direct overlapping network tunnel to implement VN. In addition, the VN can be connected via NVE (typically resident in the data center gateway) and the Internet.

Information transfer between NVEs can be implemented in a variety of schemes, such as multicast based on the underlying network, or using a mechanism similar to a route reflector, but they are not well suited for implementation of the VN here. Mainly or have higher requirements for the underlying network, or based on a more complex protocol, or complex for NVE, or introduce additional overhead.

In view of the related technologies, the implementation requirements of the virtual network are relatively high, and the protocol is complicated, and there is currently no effective solution.

Summary of the invention

The invention provides a method, a device and a system for implementing a virtual network, so as to at least solve the problem that the implementation requirements of the virtual network are relatively high and the implementation is complicated.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a method for implementing a virtual network is provided, including: a network virtualization edge device NVE and a network virtualization control device NVA establishing a TCP connection and running a virtual network transmission protocol VNTP thereon; The NVE sends the routing update information of the VN to the NVA through the VNTP; the NVA forwards the routing update information of the VN to all other NVEs of the VN.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the packet information of the VNTP protocol is carried by the data part of the TCP packet, and the VNTP protocol packet includes: a VNTP header and a VNTP data part.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the VNTP header includes: a command/opcode field, which is used to define different operations, and the command/opcode field information includes one of the following: a route update message, a heartbeat information, and an identity authentication information. The routing update result feedback information; the command/status field is used to define an execution result of the related command, and the command/status field includes at least one of the following: route update success information, route update failure information, route update success or failure association information; An indication field for indicating a further subdivision type of the command field.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the indication field includes at least one of the following: a route update message indication bit, configured to distinguish whether the NVE is the first routing update of the specific VN or the subsequent routing update; the fault recovery message indication Bit, used for NVE routing update after fault recovery; routing update type indicator bit, used to indicate the type of routing update information.

In this embodiment of the present invention, the method includes: the VNTP data part includes route update information; and the route update information includes one of the following: IPv4, IPv6, and routing information of a MAC address.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the NVA forwarding the routing update information to the other NVEs of the VN includes: the NVA collects the NVE information in the VN by using the route update information of the NVE of the VN, and forms the a list of all NVEs of the VN; the NVA sends the routing update information of the VN to all other NVEs in the NVE list of the VN except for the NVE that sent the routing update information.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the method further includes: the NVE acquiring and saving the NVE list information of the VN from the NVA, where the NVE list information is the NVA collecting the NVE information in the VN. A list of all NVEs of the VN; in the case of the NVA failure, according to the list information, the NVE performs routing information update via a TCP connection.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, a virtual network implemented NVE apparatus is further provided, including: a first configuration module, configured to configure IP address information of the NVE and context information of the VN, wherein the context information includes It is not limited to: the VN virtual route forwarding function VRF, VN-ID; the sending module is configured to send routing update information or other command message to the NVA through the TCP connection and the VNTP protocol thereon; The receiving module is configured to receive a routing update message returned by the NVA or a result message of other command messages; the protocol processing module prepares a VNTP protocol message and performs related processing on the result of the message.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the result of the message is related to: the NVE acquires and saves the NVE list information of the VN from the NVA; and in the case that the NVA fails, according to the list information, The NVE updates routing information directly over the TCP connection and other NVEs in the VN.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the message that the sending module sends the routing update message to the VNTP protocol is carried by the data part of the TCP packet, where the VNTP protocol packet includes: VNTP Header and VNTP data section.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, an NVA device implemented by a virtual network is further provided, including: a second configuration module configured to configure an IP address of the NVA itself; and an obtaining module configured to acquire an NVE routing update of the VN through a TCP connection. Information, wherein the TCP connection runs a virtual network transfer protocol VNTP; a storage module configured to store NVE information of the VN, and/or store routing update information of the VN; a protocol processing and forwarding module configured to process and Forwarding, by the VN, the NVE route update information and other command messages to all other NVEs of the VN; and forwarding the execution result information of the related command message.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the packet information of the VNTP protocol of the routing update message acquired by the acquiring module is carried by the data part of the TCP packet, where the VNTP protocol packet includes: VNTP header and VNTP data part.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the protocol processing and forwarding module includes: a collecting unit, configured to collect, by the NVA, the NVE routing information of the VN, and collect NVE information in the VN to form all NVE lists of the VN; a unit, configured to send, by the NVA, the routing update information to all other NVEs in the NVE list of the VN except for the NVE that sends the routing update information, and forward the execution result information of the related command message To the NVE.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, there is also provided a virtual network implemented system, comprising: an NVE and an NVA, comprising: the NVE device and the NVA device; the NVE device and the NVA device establish a TCP connection, and Running a virtual network transport protocol VNTP thereon; the NVE device sends routing update information of the VN to the NVA device through the VNTP; the NVA device forwards the routing update information of the VN to all other of the VN NVE device.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the NVE device acquires and saves list information of the NVE device of the VN from the NVA device; and if the NVA device fails, according to the list information, the NVE The device performs routing information updates, or processing of other command messages, directly over the TCP connection and other NVE devices in the VN.

Through the present invention, the network virtualization edge device NVE and the network virtualization control device NVA are used to establish a TCP connection, and a virtual network transmission protocol VNTP is run thereon; the NVE sends VN routing update information to the NVA through the VNTP; the NVA will The routing update information of the VN is forwarded to all other NVEs of the VN, which solves the problem that the virtual network has high implementation requirements and complex protocols, and reduces the implementation conditions of the virtual network.

DRAWINGS

The drawings described herein are intended to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are intended to be a part of the invention. In the drawing:

1 is a schematic structural diagram of a virtual network provided in the related art;

2 is a flow chart of a method for virtual network implementation in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a structural block diagram of an NVE device implemented by a virtual network according to an embodiment of the present invention;

4 is a structural block diagram of an NVA device implemented by a virtual network according to an embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a schematic diagram of the functions of a virtual network implementation of a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

6 is a schematic diagram of a VRF entry of a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

7 is a schematic diagram of a TCP packet format according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

8 is a schematic diagram of a header format of a VNTP protocol according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

9 is a schematic diagram of a data format of a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

10 is a schematic diagram of a main flow of a VNTP protocol according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

11 is a schematic diagram of a UDP packet format according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

12 is a schematic diagram of a UDP header definition according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

13 is a schematic diagram of a format of an IP packet according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 14 is a schematic illustration of the definition of an IP header in a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

detailed description

The invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings in conjunction with the embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments in the present application and the features in the embodiments may be combined with each other without conflict.

In this embodiment, a method for implementing a virtual network is provided. FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method for implementing a virtual network according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the process includes the following steps:

In step S202, the network virtualization edge device NVE and the network virtualization control device NVA establish a TCP connection, and run a virtual network transmission protocol (VRP) thereon;

Step S204, the NVE sends the routing update information of the VN to the NVA through the VNTP;

Step S206, the NVA forwards the routing update information of the VN to all other NVEs of the VN.

Through the above steps, the NVE establishes a connection with the NVA through the TCP protocol, and sends routing update information on the connection, and the NVA forwards the routing update information to all other NVEs of the VN to synchronize and solve the virtual network. The implementation requirements are relatively high, and the protocol is complicated, which reduces the implementation conditions of the virtual network.

In this embodiment, the packet information of the VNTP protocol is carried by the data part of the TCP packet, where the VNTP protocol packet includes: a VNTP header and a VNTP data part.

In this embodiment, the VNTP header may include: a command/opcode field for defining different operations, and the command/opcode field information includes one of the following: a route update message, a heartbeat message, an identity authentication information, and a route update. Result feedback information; a command/status field for defining an execution result of the related command, the command/status field comprising at least one of the following: route update success information, route update failure information, route update success or failure association information; indication field, A further subdivision type used to indicate the command field.

The indication field in the foregoing embodiment may include at least one of the following: a route update message indication bit, configured to distinguish whether the NVE is the first routing update of the specific VN or the subsequent routing update; the failure recovery message indication bit, The routing update for the NVE after the fault is recovered; the routing update type indication bit is used to indicate the type of the routing update information.

The VNTP data portion in the above embodiment may include routing update information; the routing update information includes one of the following: IPv4, IPv6, and MAC address routing information.

The NVA in the foregoing embodiment may forward the routing update information to other NVEs of the VN in multiple manners. For example, the NVA collects the NVE information in the VN through the routing update information of the NVE of the VN to form the VN. a list of all NVEs; the NVA sends the routing update information of the VN to all other NVEs in the NVE list of the VN except for the NVE that sent the routing update information.

In this embodiment, the NVE can also obtain and save the NVE list information of the VN from the NVA, where the NVE list information is the NVA collecting the NVE information in the VN, forming all the NVEs of the VN. List; in the case of the NVA failure, according to the list information, the NVE performs routing information update via the TCP connection.

In this embodiment, an NVE device implemented by a virtual network and an NVA device implemented by a virtual network are also provided. The device is used to implement the foregoing embodiments and preferred embodiments, and details are not described herein. As used below, the term "module" may implement a combination of software and/or hardware of a predetermined function. Although the apparatus described in the following embodiments is preferably implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware, is also possible and contemplated.

3 is a structural block diagram of an NVE device implemented by a virtual network according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, the first configuration module 32, the sending module 34, the receiving module 36, and the protocol processing module 38 are provided. Description.

The first configuration module 32 is configured to configure the IP address information of the NVE and the context information of the VN, where the context information includes, but is not limited to, the virtual route forwarding function VRF, VN-ID of the VN;

The sending module 34 is configured to send routing update information or other command message to the NVA through a TCP connection and a VNTP protocol thereon;

The receiving module 36 is configured to receive a routing update message returned by the NVA or a result message of other command messages;

The protocol processing module 38 prepares the VNTP protocol message and performs related processing on the result of the message.

In the above apparatus, the result of the message is related to: the NVE acquires and saves the NVE list information of the VN from the NVA; in the case that the NVA fails, according to the list information, the NVE directly connects through the TCP and the VN The other NVEs in the routing update the routing information.

Through the above device, the NVE establishes a connection with the NVA through the TCP protocol, and sends routing update information on the connection, and the NVA forwards the routing update information to all other NVEs of the VN to implement synchronization, thereby solving the virtual network. The implementation requirements are relatively high, and the protocol is complicated, which reduces the implementation conditions of the virtual network.

4 is a structural block diagram of an NVA device of a virtual network according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, the second configuration module 42 includes an acquisition module 44, a storage module 46, and a protocol processing and forwarding module 48. Be explained.

The second configuration module 42 is configured to configure an IP address of the NVA itself;

The obtaining module 44 is configured to obtain NVE routing update information of the VN through a TCP connection, where the virtual network transmission protocol VNTP is run on the TCP connection;

The storage module 46 is configured to store NVE information of the VN, and/or store routing update information of the VN;

The protocol processing and forwarding module 48 is configured to process and forward a command message such as the NVE route update information of the VN to all other NVEs of the VN; and forward the execution result information of the related command message.

In this embodiment, the protocol processing and forwarding module 48 includes:

The collecting unit is configured to collect the NVE information in the VN through the NV routing update information of the VN, and form all NVE lists of the VN;

And a forwarding unit, configured to send the route update information to all other NVEs in the NVE list of the VN other than the NVE that sends the route update information, and forward the execution result information of the related command message to the NVE.

In this embodiment, a virtual network implemented system, including NVE and NVA, is also provided, including:

The NVE device and the NVA device in the above embodiment; the NVE device and the NVA device establish a TCP connection, and run a virtual network transmission protocol VNTP thereon; the NVE device sends VN routing update information to the NVA device through the VNTP; The NVA device forwards the routing update information of the VN to all other NVE devices of the VN.

In addition, in the system of the embodiment, the NVE device acquires and saves list information of the NVE device of the VN from the NVA device; in case the NVA device fails, according to the list information, the NVE device directly connects through the TCP and Other NVE devices in the VN perform routing information updates, or processing of other command messages.

The invention will now be described in detail in conjunction with the preferred embodiments and embodiments.

The preferred embodiment provides a method and system for implementing a virtual network in a data center. Including: NVA and NVE, and related VMs, including: defining an interaction protocol between NVE-NVA (VNTP-Virtual Network Transfer Protocol-tentative name) to implement VN construction. Wherein the protocol is based on TCP and is further defined An interaction mechanism, and the associated information format that needs to be transmitted, as well as the format of the relevant structural information, and the specific information content.

The interaction protocol is defined by a TCP-based message. Specifically, a new type is defined for the VNTP through the optional TCP header.

Further, preferably, a new VNTP header may be further defined in the TCP data part for implementing the VNTP protocol.

The VNTP header includes a command/opcode field for defining different operations, including but not limited to: route update, heartbeat information, identity authentication information, status field, used to define the execution result of the related command, or the like, or routing update. Information; and VN-ID information, etc.

Further, the routing update information includes but is not limited to: IPv4, IPv6, and MAC address classes. For an IP address, it usually consists of a prefix and a mask.

Further, the status information includes, but is not limited to, the first routing update information, the update success, the update failure, and the like. Optionally, the method further includes: success, or specific information of the failure.

Further, the VNTP can be used to transmit IP address information of other VNEs in the VN. It is used to improve reliability. That is, in the case of NVA failure, the NVE in the VN can still operate normally by directly interacting with other NVEs.

Further, TCP uses the specified port number for VNTP.

Optionally, the VNTP supports automatic provisioning of the VN. Specifically, the VN identity authentication information of the VM needs to be transmitted, and further, after the identity authentication is passed, the VN-ID information is returned.

Optionally, the VNTP supports actively sending the VN-ID and the VN context (Context, or VN context) information to the designated VN to implement the VN.

Optionally, the VNTP supports VLAN information transmission of the VM connection interface.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the function of a virtual network implementation of a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 5, the figure includes: network entities such as NVA and NVE. The VM implements the VN through the NVE connection.

To implement VN, you need to do some configuration work such as equipment and protocols. Includes the initial configuration of each device involved.

Initial configuration NVE, and NVA, including the following configuration content and related configuration information.

Specifically, it includes: the NVE and NVA's own IP address configuration, and the NVE, and also includes the VN context, especially the VN-ID, and the configuration of the VRF, and the relationship between them.

Figure 6 is a schematic illustration of a VRF entry in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in Figure 6, the content of a VRF entry shows how these parameters are related to implement VN.

Whenever a VN NVE is newly configured, the NVE will try to update its routing information to other VNEs in the VN, so that other VMs connected to the NVE can access the machine connected to the NVE. service.

Specifically, information transmission between NVEs is performed using the TCP protocol. TCP is used instead of UDP because TCP implements reliable connections and has mechanisms such as timeout retransmissions, while UDP does not.

For the sake of simplicity, according to experience, different TCP port numbers can be used to distinguish different protocols. For example, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) port number is 80, the Telnet port number is 23, and so on. The present invention also uses a special TCP port number to distinguish the VNTP protocol, that is, it needs to apply for a new Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The port number. However, the specific values can be assigned according to the implementation.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of a TCP packet format according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 7, it is a TCP packet format. Shown here for reference. The protocol packet format of VNTP is extended based on the format of this packet.

Specifically, FIG. 7 is an encapsulation format of the VNTP protocol packet of the present invention. The information of the protocol packet of the VNTP is carried by the data part of the TCP packet.

That is, the protocol packet of the VNTP is a further detailed definition of the data part of the TCP packet.

Specifically, the VNTP protocol packet further includes: a VNTP header and a VNTP data part.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a header format of a VNTP protocol according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 8, the VNTP header part includes but is not limited to:

The command/opcode field is used to define different operations, including but not limited to: route update, heartbeat information (usually used to periodically exchange information to discover whether the peer is in normal operation), identity authentication information, and route. Update result feedback information;

Indicator field: optional, further used to indicate further classification of commands/operations. For example, the routing update message may include an indication bit for distinguishing whether the NVE is the first routing update of the specific VN or the subsequent routing update; or, further, the routing update of the NVE after the failure recovery, etc. Wait. Of course, the route update after failure recovery is slightly different from the normal route update. That is, when the indication bit is set, the route update message has different command/opcode fields, indicating that the NVE is a route update after the failure recovery, and the NVA or the VN routing information saved by the NVA is updated to support the NVE. The fault recovery, the NVA can save the routing update information of all the VNs, so that in the NVE fault recovery process, the routing information about the VN can be directly synchronized; or all other NVEs in the VN are notified according to the VN information, including Update messages of all its own routes to help the recovery NVE restore the route synchronization of the VN. Further, for optimization, the NVE may include multiple VNs, and the failure recovery message may implicitly instruct the NVA to send an update message to all NVEs of the relevant VNs included in the NVE. To this end, the NVA holds information about all VNs in the NVE, which can also be represented by a table, just as the NVA holds all NVEs in a VN.

Status field, used to define the execution result of related commands, or related status information, etc.

And further, the header further includes: VN-ID information; NVE address information; and the like.

Optionally, the protocol packet of the VNTP can be further defined by an option field in the TCP header to distinguish the packet from being used for the VNTP.

The data part of the VNTP is used to convey the information that the VNTP protocol involves and needs to interact with. In general, this amount of information is relatively large and cannot be included in the VNTP header for transmission.

For example, the routing information update to the VN generally includes routing information that needs to be synchronized/updated, and the specific information, according to the number of VN information in the NVE, or in different states, especially the amount of information that needs to be updated, The information that needs to be updated is determined, and the information is placed in the data portion of the VNTP message for transmission.

It should be noted that, since NVO3 needs to support the provision of L3 and L2VN services/services, that is, the VN generally supports IPv4 or IPv6 L3 VN services, and also needs to support L2 MAC address-based VN services. That is, for the data part of the VNTP protocol, routing information updates capable of supporting IPv4, IPv6, and MAC addresses are required.

To this end, it is further required to add an indication field for the type of routing update information in the indication field of the header of the VNTP. Since there are at least three different addresses as described above, the indication field needs to include at least 2 bits. Of course, in order to ensure the relevant scalability, in the specific definition, more bits can be used to define.

The information format of the data portion of the VNTP has different forms and lengths for different address types. Specifically, the IPv4 address is 32 bits, the IPv6 address is 128 bits, and the L2 address is 48 bits.

It should be further noted that, in order to facilitate the processing of the VNTP, information of the length of the VNTP data part may be included in the VNTP header. And, optionally, possible padding information for the TCP data portion.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram of a data format according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 9, a specific data format is shown. Specifically, the specific information format of the routing update based on the IPv4 address is displayed. The reason for sub-prefixes and masks is that they are used to better support network functions.

To facilitate the processing of the VNTP, optionally, the length information of the VNTP data portion may be added in the header of the VNTP.

Execution result information for status/command, for update commands, including but not limited to:

update completed;

Update failed, etc.;

Optionally, the method further includes: specific information of success or failure. For example, including partial success information, for example, three NVEs need to be updated, but only two of the NVEs return information that was successfully updated, while another execution fails, or there is no feedback result.

These options can be encoded, for example by 8-bit, or 12/16-bit fields, and encoded.

It should be noted that the routing update result may be transmitted through a specially defined VNTP information format, that is, used to transmit routing update result feedback information. The result of the NVE and NVA feedback for the purpose of the route update is also slightly different. For the NVE, only the update result of the NVE is returned. For the NVA, the update result of all the involved NVEs needs to be integrated to form a unified The update results are fed back to the NVE that initiated the update.

For other commands, as needed, you can define the relevant information data information format, and the corresponding execution results, or status information, and so on. Several optional information/messages include: information format of all NVE lists transmitted by the NVA to the VN of the NVE; security-related public key and other information, or authentication result information returned by the VM through the VN identity authentication and related VN Context information and IP address allocation information, etc.

It should be noted that the TCP response message can be used by the NVE to implement reliable retransmission. It needs to be combined with the result feedback of the received message received by the VNTP, that is, if for some reason NVE or When the NVA sends a retransmission and the receiver receives multiple identical packets of the same packet, the routing update can be processed according to the normal packet, because it does not cause new routing updates, so the effect is the same. This simplifies the complexity of the process. For other commands, consider a similar idea, or add a retransmission flag to the relevant field of the message to facilitate the processing of the protocol.

In order to show the specific implementation of the present invention, the following VN implementation flow is further explained.

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram of a main flow of a VNTP protocol according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 10, the main flow of the VNTP protocol is shown.

Step S1002, initial configuration of the NVE. The configured content includes the NVE IP address, VN context, VRF, VN-ID and other information. After the initial configuration is complete, the NVE is triggered to send update information to the NVA to update the VRFs of other NVEs in the VN to synchronize the routing information of the VN.

There are other trigger conditions for the update information, including the loss of the connection between the VM and the NVE. This causes the NVE to delete the related routing entries.

The other condition is that the VM may be migrated. If the NVE is migrated to another NVE, the related NVE routing entries must be updated accordingly.

There may be other trigger conditions, which are not enumerated here.

In step S1004, the NVE sends update information to the NVA.

In step S1006, the NVA sends the update information to all other NVEs in the VN. Specifically, all the NVE information of the VN is obtained from the routing update information of each NVE of the VN, that is, every time a routing update information is received, check whether the NVE has sent an update, and if not, It is considered to be a new NVE in the VN, which is recorded, so that a VN NVE list can be obtained, indicating all relevant NVEs in the VN, and thus the information is sent to the NVE except the one that sends the update information. NVE.

In step S1008, each related NVE implements synchronous update.

In step S1010, optionally, each NVE feeds back the update status/result information to the NVA. Optionally, the feedback information may further include: VNE list information of the VN.

Step S1012, optionally, the NVA synthesizes the update information of each NVE, and sends an update status/result to the NVE.

In step S1014, the NVE records the update result. Optionally, the VNE list information of the VN may be stored as needed.

It should be noted that the process of the feedback may be through the response message of the TCP, generally through an independent response message, which carries information about the status/execution result.

In order to show the integrity of the present invention, in FIG. 10, an implementation scheme in which the VNTP protocol supports VN service provision is also shown.

Specifically, according to the requirements of the user's VN, it is first determined which NVEs are involved, and how many VMs are connected to these NVEs. In addition, the required VN is L2 or L3VN. This determines the type of VN. The VN-ID of the VN is also allocated.

Further, the context information of the VN of the NVE is configured. The connection interface of the VM including the VN and the entry information of the VRF of the corresponding VN. After the related configuration is complete, the NVE automatically synchronizes the routing information of other NVEs of the VN through the VNTP protocol. The local routing information, or the newly updated routing protocol, is synchronized to all other NVEs in the VN through the NVA.

Similarly, when the VRF of the VN changes, other NVEs also advertise their change information to all other NVEs in the VN, so that the routing of the entire VN is synchronized.

In this way, the VM sends a message, which generally includes VLAN information. The NVE receives the packet through the set VLAN interface and corresponds to the related VN. Specifically, the VRF entry is searched according to the destination IP address of the packet, and the corresponding NVE address of the destination address is obtained. For the IP packet, the IP address of the NVE is used as the source address, and the IP address of the destination NVE is used as the destination address. The original IP packet is further encapsulated and sent by using the VN-ID. That is, the message transmission of the overlapping network is realized. After the packet arrives at the destination NVE, the destination NVE processes the packet to the VRF of the VN according to the VN-ID information. Specifically, the VRF entry is searched according to the destination IP address, and the corresponding interface is obtained. The packet is sent to the interface. In general, the L2 layer encapsulation is required. The destination VM receives the L2 encapsulated packet and decapsulates the original IP packet. Thereby achieving communication. Thereby achieving VN.

It should be further noted that since the NVA is a single point of failure in the network, once the NVA fails, all VNs cannot perform timely routing updates, which is very dangerous. The present invention further provides a method for solving the problem, that is, periodically transmitting the NVE list information about the VN to all the VNEs in the VN during the usual route update process, after the VN determines that the NVA fails/disables, in the VN. The NVE can communicate directly with the relevant NVE through a TCP connection to implement related updates. This ensures that the VN business runs smoothly. The specific implementation aspect may include a heartbeat mechanism for identifying whether the NVA or the NVE is in a normal working state. The list information of the specific NVE can be transmitted by the specific result/state transfer command information. Optionally, the routing update result feedback information may be used for transmission.

It should be further noted that the names of all the above related fields are only a schematic function, and different names do not substantially affect the core content of the present invention. At the same time, the specific number of bits in the field can also be adjusted according to actual needs. Further, the relevant fields in the header can also be extended as needed. A scheme, like TCP, defines some options to facilitate expansion.

Further, the foregoing content is implemented based on the TCP transmission protocol, and the TCP protocol itself provides a reliable connection, so the reliability of the protocol is relatively high, but the TCP connection may need to consume a certain resource, so other protocols may be used for transmission. VNTP. That is, for the case that reliable transmission is not required, or resources need to be saved, the functions that the VNTP protocol needs to implement may also be carried by other transmission protocols, or may even be directly transmitted on the IP network.

Two of these examples are UDP-based transmissions or direct transmission over IP protocols.

The following two embodiments show how the VNTP is transmitted over UDP or over IP.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the VNTP message transmission is performed based on the UDP protocol. Among them, Figure 11 shows the UDP packet format. Figure 12 is a definition of a UDP header. This includes the source and destination port numbers, the length of the UDP packets, and the checksum information. The length includes the number of bytes including the UDP header and UDP data information.

The VNTP packet in this embodiment is carried by the data part of the UDP packet. The difference is that in order to distinguish between VNTP messages, you need to specify a specific UDP port number. Specifically, you define different UDP port numbers for NVE and NVA, just like DHCP client and server, with different port numbers 68, 67. same.

Since UDP also has a virtual header format, VNTP can also use the UDP encapsulation of this format for transmission, because the data portion of the UDP packet is still used for transmission.

Since UDP does not have any mechanism to guarantee that UDP packets can reach its destination. Therefore, in the case of virtual network implementation, especially VN information transmission through VNTP, a certain mechanism is needed to achieve reliable transmission. This measure can be returned by the user of the VN, and the UDP packet is sent again by the network administrator to ensure the synchronization of the routing information of the VN. An aspect of this embodiment is to define a UDP packet loss retransmission mechanism, that is, to start a timer when a UDP packet is sent out, and when the timer reaches a set threshold without receiving a transmission response, the NVE or The NVA automatically retransmits the UDP packet to implement reliable transmission of VN information. Correspondingly, the receiver that transmits the VNTP protocol packet through the UDP packet needs to respond after receiving the UDP packet. Of course, this is only a solution for implementing retransmission, to illustrate that the VNTP can be reliably transmitted over UDP by the present invention, and other implementations are not excluded.

Other implementation aspects of the VNTP protocol are the same as those for transmission over TCP. The various expressions of the VNTP protocol as described in detail in the various embodiments mentioned above apply equally to the UDP protocol.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the VNTP message transmission is performed based on the IP protocol.

FIG. 13 shows the packet format of the IP, including the IP header and the IP payload, and the IP packet is transmitted through the layer 2 network, that is, the encapsulation of the network interface header and the tail in the figure. Figure 14 is a definition of an IP header. This includes the source and destination IP addresses and other related content. Since this is a very mature technology, the relevant content of the header is not introduced. We only explain the content related to the present invention. The protocol field may be used to define a packet type for the VNTP, that is, an implementation scheme of the present invention, which uses a specific protocol value to indicate that the transmitted packet is a VNTP protocol packet, and the specific value may be Apply and distribute based on the distribution of protocol values and associated allocation rules. For example, currently 6 and 17 are assigned indications for the TCP and UDP protocols. In another aspect of the embodiment, the optional OPTION field of the IP header may be used to define a new option for indicating that the IP payload is a bearer VNTP packet, and the IP transmission of the VNTP may also be implemented. In this embodiment, how to implement VNTP is performed only by defining a VNTP by a protocol type. Specifically, the packet related to the VNTP is carried by the IP payload of the IP packet. Just like the aforementioned TCP, UDP implementation is similar.

As with UDP packet transmission, the IP packet transmission does not lose the retransmission mechanism. To achieve the reliability of VNTP, the VNTP transmitted through IP also needs to design its retransmission mechanism. The basic implementation scheme is based on UDP transmission. The mechanism of the VNTP packet is to start a timer when the packet is sent out. When the timer reaches the set threshold and does not receive the transmission response, the sender, such as NVE or NVA, automatically retransmits the UDP packet. To achieve reliable transmission of VN information. Correspondingly, the receiver that transmits the VNTP protocol packet through the IP packet needs to respond after receiving the IP packet. Of course, this is only a solution for implementing retransmission, to illustrate that the VNTP can be reliably transmitted over the IP protocol by the present invention, and other implementations are not excluded.

Other implementation aspects of the VNTP protocol of this embodiment are the same as those for transmission over TCP or UDP. The various expressions of the VNTP protocol as described in detail in the various embodiments mentioned above apply equally to the IP protocol.

Further, the VNTP can also be transmitted through other routing protocols, etc., and can be implemented by simply adjusting or defining the ideas provided by the present invention, and will not be further described in detail herein.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the various modules or steps of the present invention described above can be implemented by a general-purpose computing device that can be centralized on a single computing device or distributed across a network of multiple computing devices. Alternatively, they may be implemented by program code executable by the computing device such that they may be stored in the storage device by the computing device and, in some cases, may be different from The steps shown or described are performed sequentially, or they are separately fabricated into individual integrated circuit modules, or a plurality of modules or steps thereof are fabricated into a single integrated circuit module. Thus, the invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware and software.

The above description is only the preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes can be made to the present invention. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and scope of the present invention are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.

Industrial applicability

Based on the foregoing technical solution provided by the embodiment of the present invention, a network virtualized edge device NVE and a network virtualization control device NVA are used to establish a TCP connection, and a virtual network transmission protocol VNTP is run thereon; the NVE sends a VN routing update through the VNTP. The information is forwarded to the NVA; the NVA forwards the routing update information of the VN to all other NVEs of the VN, which solves the problem that the virtual network has high implementation requirements and complicated protocols, and reduces the implementation conditions of the virtual network.

Claims

A method for implementing a virtual network, comprising:

The network virtualization edge device NVE and the network virtualization control device NVA establish a TCP connection and run a virtual network transmission protocol VNTP thereon;

The NVE sends routing update information of the VN to the NVA through the VNTP;

The NVA forwards the routing update information of the VN to all other NVEs of the VN.
The method of claim 1 comprising:

The packet information of the VNTP protocol is carried by the data part of the TCP packet;

The packet of the VNTP protocol includes: a VNTP header and a VNTP data part.
The method of claim 2 wherein said VNTP header comprises at least one of:

The command/opcode field is used to define different operations, and the command/opcode field information includes one of the following: a route update message, a heartbeat information, an identity authentication information, and a route update result feedback information;

a command/status field, configured to define an execution result of the related command, where the command/status field includes at least one of the following: route update success information, route update failure information, route update success or failure association information;

An indication field for indicating a further subdivision type of the command field.
The method of claim 3, wherein the indication field comprises at least one of:

The route update message indication bit is used to distinguish whether the NVE is the first routing update of the specific VN or the subsequent routing update;

The fault recovery message indication bit is used for routing update of the NVE after failure recovery;

A route update type indicator bit for indicating the type of route update information.
A method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, comprising:

The VNTP data portion includes routing update information;

The routing update information includes one of the following: routing information of IPv4, IPv6, and MAC addresses.
The method of claim 1, wherein the NVA forwarding the routing update information to other NVEs of the VN comprises:

The NVA collects NVE information in the VN through the route update information of the NVE of the VN, and forms a list of all NVEs of the VN;

The NVA sends the routing update information of the VN to all other NVEs in the NVE list of the VN except for the NVE that sends the routing update information.
The method of claim 1 or 6, wherein the method further comprises:

Obtaining, by the NVE, the NVE list information of the VN from the NVA;

In the case that the NVA fails, according to the list information, the NVE performs routing information update via a TCP connection.
A virtual network implemented NVE device includes:

The first configuration module is configured to configure the IP address information of the NVE and the context information of the VN, where the context information includes, but is not limited to, the virtual route forwarding function VRF, VN-ID of the VN;

The sending module is configured to send routing update information or other command message to the NVA through the TCP connection and the VNTP protocol thereon;

a receiving module, configured to receive a routing update message returned by the NVA or a result message of another command message;

The protocol processing module prepares a VNTP protocol message and performs related processing on the result of the message.
The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the result of the message is related to: the NVE acquires and saves NVE list information of the VN from the NVA;

In case the NVA fails, according to the list information, the NVE directly updates the routing information through the TCP connection and other NVEs in the VN.
The device according to claim 9, wherein: the message information of the VNTP protocol in which the sending module sends a routing update message is carried by the data part of the TCP packet;

The packet of the VNTP protocol includes: a VNTP header and a VNTP data part.
The apparatus of claim 10 wherein said VNTP header comprises:

The command/opcode field is used to define different operations, and the command/opcode field information includes one of the following: a route update message, a heartbeat information, an identity authentication information, and a route update result feedback information;

a command/status field, configured to define an execution result of the related command, where the command/status field includes at least one of the following: route update success information, route update failure information, route update success or failure association information;

An indication field for indicating a further subdivision type of the command field.
The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the indication field comprises at least one of:

The route update message indication bit is used to distinguish whether the NVE is the first routing update of the specific VN or the subsequent routing update;

The fault recovery message indication bit is used for routing update of the NVE after failure recovery;

A route update type indicator bit for indicating the type of route update information.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 8 to 12, comprising:

The VNTP data portion includes routing update information;

The routing update information includes one of the following: routing information of IPv4, IPv6, and MAC addresses.
A virtual network implemented NVA device, comprising:

The second configuration module is configured to configure an IP address of the NVA itself;

Obtaining a module, configured to obtain NVE routing update information of the VN through a TCP connection, where the virtual network transmission protocol VNTP is run on the TCP connection;

a storage module, configured to store NVE information of the VN, and/or store routing update information of the VN;

a protocol processing and forwarding module, configured to process and forward a command message such as the NVE route update information of the VN to all other NVEs of the VN; and forward execution result information of the related command message.
The device according to claim 14, wherein the message information of the VNTP protocol of the route update message acquired by the acquiring module is carried by the data part of the TCP packet;

The packet of the VNTP protocol includes: a VNTP header and a VNTP data part.
The apparatus of claim 15 wherein said VNTP header comprises:

The command/opcode field is used to define different operations, and the command/opcode field information includes one of the following: a route update message, a heartbeat information, an identity authentication information, and a route update result feedback information;

a command/status field, configured to define an execution result of the related command, where the command/status field includes at least one of the following: route update success information, route update failure information, route update success or failure association information;

An indication field for indicating a further subdivision type of the command field.
The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the indication field comprises at least one of:

The route update message indication bit is used to distinguish whether the NVE is the first routing update of the specific VN or the subsequent routing update;

The fault recovery message indication bit is used for routing update of the NVE after failure recovery;

A route update type indicator bit for indicating the type of route update information.
The apparatus according to any one of claims 14 to 16, comprising:

The VNTP data portion includes routing update information;

The routing update information includes one of the following: routing information of IPv4, IPv6, and MAC addresses.
The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the protocol processing and forwarding module comprises:

The collecting unit is configured to collect the NVE information in the VN by using the routing update information of the NVE of the VN to form all NVE lists of the VN;

a forwarding unit, configured to send, by the NVA, the routing update information to all other NVEs in the NVE list of the VN except for the NVE that sends the routing update information, and forward an execution result of the related command message Information to the NVE.
A virtual network implemented system, including NVE and NVA, including:

The NVE device according to claims 8 to 13 and the NVA device according to claims 14 to 19;

The NVE device and the NVA device establish a TCP connection and run a virtual network transfer protocol VNTP thereon;

The NVE device sends routing update information of the VN to the NVA device by using the VNTP;

The NVA device forwards the routing update information of the VN to all other NVE devices of the VN.
The system of claim 20, comprising:

The NVE device acquires and saves list information of the NVE device of the VN from the NVA device;

In case the NVA device fails, according to the list information, the NVE device directly performs routing information update or other command message processing through a TCP connection and other NVE devices in the VN.