Enabling communications within container environment

Abstract

Techniques are described for implementing a container environment in which each bay within the container environment is provided with a unique IP address and a virtual communication device, such as an IPvlan device. Communication from a source bay is routed directly to a destination bay within a container environment using a unique IP address of the destination bay through one or more virtualized network interface cards (VNICs) without bridging and packaging. This reduces the size of the data to be transmitted and also eliminates the computational cost necessary to perform data encapsulation during transmission.

Description

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0002] This application claims the benefit of the filing dates of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63 / 353,462, filed on June 17, 2022, and U.S. Non-Provisional Patent Application No. 17 / 964,768, filed on October 12, 2022, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. Background Art

[0003] Today, container environments, including orchestration systems such as Kubernetes, are a popular means for implementing and deploying container-based applications. However, applications and pods implemented within traditional systems communicate with each other only using bridge devices that encapsulate such communications. This encapsulation adds computational and data overhead to such communications and also prevents identification of specific sender and receiver information in communication flow logs. Summary of the invention

[0004] Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to facilitating direct communications between pods within a container environment. A container environment is disclosed that includes one or more nodes, each node containing one or more pods. Within the container environment, a virtual communication device is included within each pod for communicating with other pods without the use of bridges or encapsulation. One or more virtual network interface cards (VNICs) are attached to the nodes containing the pods, and the VNICs facilitate pod communications by receiving and forwarding data sent to and from each pod via its virtual communication device.

[0005] At least one embodiment is directed to a computer-implemented method. The method may include configuring a node with one or more operating system level virtualization instances. The method may also include configuring communications from the one or more operating system level virtualization instances via a virtual communication device.

[0006] At least one embodiment is directed to a computer-implemented method. The method may include configuring a first node within a container environment, the first node including a first container. The method may also include configuring communications from the first container via a first virtual communication device. The method may also include receiving data from a first virtual communication device assigned to a first container within the first node at a first virtualized network interface card (VNIC) connected to the first node within the container environment, the data configured to be transmitted to a destination device. The method may also include routing the data to the destination device by the first VNIC, the data including at least an address identifying the first container.

[0007] Another embodiment is directed to a computing device comprising one or more processors and instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing device to perform any suitable combination of the method(s) disclosed herein.

[0008] Another embodiment is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing cluster, cause the computing cluster to perform any suitable combination of the method(s) disclosed herein.

[0009] Yet another embodiment is directed to an apparatus for implementing communications within a container environment, comprising: a component for configuring a first node within the container environment, the first node comprising a first compartment representing a set of one or more containers having shared resources; a component for configuring communications from the first compartment via a first virtual communications device; a component for receiving, at a first virtualized network interface card (VNIC) connected to the first node within the container environment, data from a first virtual communications device assigned to the first compartment within the first node, the data being configured to be transmitted to a destination device; and a component for routing the data to the destination device via the first virtualized network interface card, the data comprising at least an address identifying the first compartment.

[0010] Yet another embodiment is directed to a computer program product comprising computer instructions that, when executed by a processor, implement any suitable combination of the method(s) disclosed herein. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011] To easily identify the discussion of any particular element or action, the highest digit or digits in a reference number refer to the figure number in which the element is first introduced.

[0012] Figure 1 is a high-level diagram illustrating a distributed environment of a virtual or overlay cloud network hosted by a cloud service provider infrastructure, according to certain embodiments.

[0013] Figure 2 Depicted is a simplified architectural diagram of physical components in a physical network within a CSPI in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0014] Figure 3 An example arrangement within a CSPI is shown in accordance with certain embodiments, where a host is connected to multiple network virtualization devices (NVDs).

[0015] Figure 4 Depicted is connectivity between a host and an NVD for providing I / O virtualization to support multi-tenancy in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0016] Figure 5Depicted is a simplified block diagram of a physical network provided by CSPI in accordance with certain embodiments.

[0017] Figure 6 is a block diagram of a container environment for facilitating direct pod-to-pod communications according to at least one embodiment.

[0018] Figure 7 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 Block diagram of an exemplary request flow between two pods sharing a single VNIC within an exemplary container environment.

[0019] Figure 8 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 A block diagram of an exemplary response flow between two pods sharing a single VNIC within an exemplary container environment.

[0020] Fig. 9 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 A block diagram of an exemplary request flow between two pods communicating via different VNICs within the same node of an exemplary container environment.

[0021] Fig.10 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 A block diagram of an exemplary response flow between two pods communicating via different VNICs within the same node of an exemplary container environment.

[0022] Fig.11 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 A block diagram of an exemplary request flow between two pods communicating via different VNICs within different nodes of an exemplary container environment.

[0023] Fig.12 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 A block diagram of an exemplary response flow between two pods communicating via different VNICs within different nodes of an exemplary container environment.

[0024] Fig.13 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 A block diagram of an exemplary request flow between a pod and a virtual cloud network (VCN) within an exemplary container environment.

[0025] Fig.14 is used to illustrate the Figure 1 A block diagram of an exemplary response flow between a pod and a virtual cloud network (VCN) within an exemplary container environment.

[0026] Fig.15An example method for enabling communications within a container environment in accordance with at least one embodiment is illustrated.

[0027] Fig.16 is a block diagram illustrating one mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment.

[0028] Fig.17 is a block diagram illustrating another mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment

[0029] Fig.18 is a block diagram illustrating another mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment

[0030] Fig.19 is a block diagram illustrating another mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment.

[0031] Fig. 20 is a block diagram illustrating an example computer system in accordance with at least one embodiment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] Example virtual networking architecture

[0033] The term cloud service is generally used to refer to services made available on demand (e.g., via a subscription model) to users or customers by a cloud service provider (CSP) using systems and infrastructure (cloud infrastructure) provided by the CSP. Typically, the servers and systems that make up the CSP infrastructure are separate from the customer's own on-premises servers and systems. Therefore, customers can take advantage of the cloud services themselves provided by the CSP without having to purchase separate hardware and software resources for the service. Cloud services are designed to provide subscribing customers with easy, scalable access to applications and computing resources without requiring customers to invest in the infrastructure used to provide the service.

[0034] There are several cloud service providers that offer various types of cloud services. There are various cloud service types or models, including software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), etc.

[0035] A customer can subscribe to one or more cloud services provided by a CSP. A customer can be any entity, such as an individual, organization, enterprise, etc. When a customer subscribes to or registers for a service provided by a CSP, a lease or account is created for the customer. The customer can then access one or more subscribed cloud resources associated with the account through this account.

[0036] As mentioned above, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a specific type of cloud computing service. In the IaaS model, the CSP provides infrastructure (referred to as Cloud Service Provider Infrastructure or CSPI) that can be used by customers to build their own customizable networks and deploy customer resources. Therefore, the customer's resources and network are hosted in a distributed environment by the infrastructure provided by the CSP. This is different from traditional computing, in which the customer's resources and network are hosted by the infrastructure provided by the customer.

[0037] CSPI may include interconnected high-performance computing resources, including various hosts, memory resources, and network resources that form a physical network, which is also referred to as a base network or underlying network. The resources in CSPI may be dispersed across one or more data centers, which may be geographically dispersed across one or more geographic regions. Virtualization software may be executed by these physical resources to provide a virtualized distributed environment. Virtualization creates an overlay network (also referred to as a software-based network, a software-defined network, or a virtual network) on a physical network. The CSPI physical network provides an underlying foundation for creating one or more overlay or virtual networks on top of a physical network. A physical network (or base network or underlying network) includes physical network devices, such as physical switches, routers, computers, and hosts. An overlay network is a logical (or virtual) network that runs on top of a physical base network. A given physical network may support one or more overlay networks. Overlay networks typically use encapsulation technology to distinguish traffic belonging to different overlay networks. A virtual or overlay network is also referred to as a virtual cloud network (VCN). Virtual networks are implemented using software virtualization technology (e.g., hypervisors, functions implemented by network virtualization devices (NVDs) (e.g., smartNICs), top-of-rack (TOR) switches, intelligent TORs that implement one or more functions performed by NVDs, and other mechanisms) to create a network abstraction layer that can run on top of a physical network. Virtual networks can take many forms, including peer-to-peer networks, IP networks, and the like. Virtual networks are typically layer-3 IP networks or layer-2 VLANs. This method of virtual or overlay networking is often referred to as virtual or overlay layer-3 networking. Examples of protocols developed for virtual networks include IP-in-IP (or Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)), Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN—IETF RFC 7348), Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) (e.g., MPLS Layer-3 Virtual Private Networks) (RFC 4364)), VMware's NSX, GENEVE (Generic Network Virtualization Encapsulation), and the like.

[0038] For IaaS, the infrastructure (CSPI) provided by the CSP can be configured to provide virtualized computing resources over a public network (e.g., the Internet). In the IaaS model, cloud computing providers can host infrastructure components (e.g., servers, storage devices, network nodes (e.g., hardware), deployment software, platform virtualization (e.g., hypervisor layer), or the like). In some cases, IaaS providers can also supply a variety of services to accompany those infrastructure components (e.g., billing, monitoring, logging, security, load balancing, and clustering, etc.). Therefore, since these services can be policy-driven, IaaS users can implement policies to drive load balancing to maintain application availability and performance. CSPI provides infrastructure and a set of complementary cloud services that enable customers to build and run a wide range of applications and services in a highly available managed distributed environment. CSPI provides high-performance computing resources and capabilities as well as storage capacity in a flexible virtual network that can be securely accessed from a variety of networked locations (such as from a customer's local deployment network). When a customer subscribes to or signs up for an IaaS service provided by a CSP, the tenancy created for that customer is a secure and isolated partition within CSPI where the customer can create, organize, and manage its cloud resources.

[0039] Customers can use the computing, storage, and networking resources provided by CSPI to build their own virtual networks. One or more customer resources or workloads (such as computing instances) can be deployed on these virtual networks. For example, customers can use the resources provided by CSPI to build one or more customizable and private (one or more) virtual networks called virtual cloud networks (VCNs). Customers can deploy one or more customer resources, such as computing instances, on customer VCNs. Computing instances can take the form of virtual machines, bare metal instances, etc. Therefore, CSPI provides infrastructure and a set of complementary cloud services that enable customers to build and run a wide range of applications and services in a highly available virtual hosting environment. Customers do not manage or control the underlying physical resources provided by CSPI, but have control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possible limited control over selected networking components (e.g., firewalls).

[0040] The CSP may provide a console that enables customers and network administrators to use CSPI resources to configure, access, and manage resources deployed in the cloud. In some embodiments, the console provides a web-based user interface that can be used to access and manage CSPI. In some implementations, the console is a web-based application provided by the CSP.

[0041] CSPI can support single-tenancy or multi-tenancy architecture. In a single-tenancy architecture, software (e.g., application, database) or hardware component (e.g., host or server) serves a single customer or tenant. In a multi-tenancy architecture, software or hardware component serves multiple customers or tenants. Therefore, in a multi-tenancy architecture, CSPI resources are shared among multiple customers or tenants. In the case of multi-tenancy, precautions are taken and safeguards are implemented within CSPI to ensure that each tenant's data is isolated and remains invisible to other tenants.

[0042] In a physical network, a network endpoint ("endpoint") refers to a computing device or system that is connected to a physical network and communicates back and forth with the network to which it is connected. A network endpoint in a physical network may be connected to a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or other types of physical networks. Examples of traditional endpoints in a physical network include modems, hubs, bridges, switches, routers, and other networking devices, physical computers (or hosts), and the like. Each physical device in a physical network has a fixed network address that can be used to communicate with the device. This fixed network address may be a layer-2 address (e.g., a MAC address), a fixed layer-3 address (e.g., an IP address), and the like. In a virtualized environment or in a virtual network, an endpoint may include various virtual endpoints, such as a virtual machine hosted by a component of the physical network (e.g., hosted by a physical host). These endpoints in a virtual network are addressed by overlay addresses such as an overlay layer-2 address (e.g., an overlay MAC address) and an overlay layer-3 address (e.g., an overlay IP address). Network overlays enable flexibility by allowing network administrators to move overlay addresses associated with network endpoints using software management (e.g., via software that implements the control plane of the virtual network). Therefore, unlike in a physical network, in a virtual network, an overlay address (e.g., an overlay IP address) can be moved from one endpoint to another using network management software. Since the virtual network is built on top of the physical network, communication between components in the virtual network involves both the virtual network and the underlying physical network. To facilitate such communication, components of CSPI are configured to learn and store mappings that map overlay addresses in the virtual network to actual physical addresses in the base network, and vice versa. These mappings are then used to facilitate communication. Customer traffic is encapsulated to facilitate routing in the virtual network.

[0043] Thus, physical addresses (e.g., physical IP addresses) are associated with components in a physical network, and overlay addresses (e.g., overlay IP addresses) are associated with entities in a virtual or overlay network. A physical IP address is an IP address associated with a physical device (e.g., a network device) in a substrate or physical network. For example, each NVD has an associated physical IP address. An overlay IP address is an overlay address associated with an entity in an overlay network, such as a computing instance in a customer's virtual cloud network (VCN). Two different customers or tenants (each with their own private VCN) may potentially use the same overlay IP address in their VCN without knowing anything about each other. Both physical IP addresses and overlay IP addresses are types of real IP addresses. These are separate from virtual IP addresses. A virtual IP address is typically a single IP address that represents or maps to multiple real IP addresses. A virtual IP address provides a one-to-many mapping between a virtual IP address and multiple real IP addresses. For example, a load balancer can use a VIP to map or represent multiple servers, each with its own real IP address.

[0044] The cloud infrastructure or CSPI is physically hosted in one or more data centers in one or more regions around the world. The CSPI may include components in a physical or base network and virtualized components (e.g., virtual networks, computing instances, virtual machines, etc.) in a virtual network built on top of physical network components. In some embodiments, the CSPI is organized and hosted in domains, regions, and availability domains. A region is typically a local geographic area containing one or more data centers. Regions are typically independent of each other and can be separated by a long distance, such as across countries or even continents. For example, a first region may be in Australia, another region in Japan, and yet another region in India, and so on. CSPI resources are divided between regions so that each region has its own independent subset of CSPI resources. Each region can provide a set of core infrastructure services and resources, such as computing resources (e.g., bare metal servers, virtual machines, containers, and related infrastructure, etc.); storage resources (e.g., block volume storage, file storage, object storage, archive storage); networking resources (e.g., virtual cloud network (VCN), load balancing resources, connections to on-premises networks), database resources; edge networking resources (e.g., DNS); and access management and monitoring resources, etc. Each region typically has multiple paths connecting it to other regions within the domain.

[0045] Typically, applications are deployed in the region where they are most frequently used (i.e., on infrastructure associated with that region) because using nearby resources is faster than using distant resources. Applications may also be deployed in different regions for a variety of reasons, such as redundancy to mitigate the risk of regional-wide events such as large weather systems or earthquakes, to meet changing requirements of legal jurisdictions, tax domains, and other business or social standards, etc.

[0046] Data centers within a region can be further organized and subdivided into availability domains (ADs). An availability domain can correspond to one or more data centers located within a region. A region can consist of one or more availability domains. In such a distributed environment, CSPI resources are region-specific (such as a virtual cloud network (VCN)) or availability domain-specific, such as compute instances.

[0047] ADs within a region are isolated from each other, fault-tolerant, and configured so that they are unlikely to fail simultaneously. This is achieved by ADs not sharing key infrastructure resources (such as networking, physical cables, cable paths, cable entry points, etc.), making it unlikely that a failure at one AD within a region will affect the availability of other ADs within the same region. ADs within the same region can be connected to each other through a low-latency, high-bandwidth network, which makes it possible to provide high-availability connectivity to other networks (e.g., the Internet, customer-premises networks, etc.) and to build replication systems and disaster recovery for high availability in multiple ADs. Cloud services use multiple ADs to ensure high availability and prevent resource failures. As the infrastructure provided by the IaaS provider grows, more regions and ADs can be added with additional capacity. Traffic between availability domains is typically encrypted.

[0048] In some embodiments, regions are grouped into domains. A domain is a logical collection of regions. Domains are isolated from each other and do not share any data. Regions in the same domain can communicate with each other, but regions in different domains cannot. A customer's lease or account with a CSP exists in a single domain and can be scattered across one or more regions belonging to that domain. Typically, when a customer subscribes to an IaaS service, a lease or account is created for the customer in a customer-specified region within a domain (referred to as the "home" region). A customer can extend the customer's lease across one or more other regions within a domain. A customer cannot access regions that are not in the domain where the customer's lease exists.

[0049] An IaaS provider may offer multiple domains, each catering to a specific set of customers or users. For example, a business domain may be provided for business customers. As another example, a country-specific domain may be provided for customers within a specific country. As yet another example, a government domain may be provided for a government, and so on. For example, a government domain may cater to a specific government and may have an increased level of security than a business domain. For example, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) currently offers one domain for business regions and two domains (e.g., FedRAMP authorized and IL5 authorized) for government cloud regions.

[0050] In some embodiments, an AD may be subdivided into one or more fault domains. A fault domain is a grouping of infrastructure resources within an AD to provide anti-affinity. Fault domains allow for the distribution of compute instances so that instances are not on the same physical hardware within a single AD. This is called anti-affinity. A fault domain refers to a group of hardware components (computers, switches, etc.) that share a single point of failure. The computing pool is logically divided into multiple fault domains. Therefore, a hardware failure or computing hardware maintenance event that affects one fault domain does not affect instances in other fault domains. Depending on the embodiment, the number of fault domains per AD may vary. For example, in some embodiments, each AD contains three fault domains. Fault domains act as logical data centers within an AD.

[0051] When a customer subscribes to an IaaS service, resources from CSPI are supplied to the customer and associated with the customer's lease. Customers can use these supplied resources to build private networks and deploy resources on these networks. Customer networks hosted by CSPI in the cloud are called virtual cloud networks (VCNs). Customers can use CSPI resources allocated to customers to establish one or more virtual cloud networks (VCNs). VCNs are virtual or software-defined private networks. Customer resources deployed in a customer's VCN may include computing instances (e.g., virtual machines, bare metal instances) and other resources. These computing instances may represent various customer workloads, such as applications, load balancers, databases, and the like. Computing instances deployed on VCNs may communicate with publicly accessible endpoints ("public endpoints") through public networks (such as the Internet), may communicate with other instances in the same VCN or other VCNs (e.g., other VCNs of customers or VCNs that do not belong to customers), may communicate with customer's local deployment data centers or networks, and may communicate with service endpoints and other types of endpoints.

[0052] CSPs can use CSPI to provide various services. In some instances, customers of CSPI can themselves behave like service providers and provide services using CSPI resources. Service providers can expose service endpoints, which are characterized by identification information (e.g., IP address, DNS name, and port). Customers' resources (e.g., computing instances) can consume a particular service by accessing the service endpoints exposed by the service for that particular service. These service endpoints are typically endpoints that can be publicly accessed by users via a public communication network (such as the Internet) using a public IP address associated with the endpoint. Publicly accessible network endpoints are sometimes also referred to as public endpoints.

[0053] In some embodiments, a service provider may expose a service via an endpoint of the service (sometimes referred to as a service endpoint). Clients of the service may then use this service endpoint to access the service. In some implementations, the service endpoint provided for a service may be accessed by multiple clients that intend to consume the service. In other implementations, a dedicated service endpoint may be provided to a client so that only the client can access the service using the dedicated service endpoint.

[0054] In some embodiments, when a VCN is created, it is associated with a private overlay Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) address space, which is a range of private overlay IP addresses assigned to the VCN (e.g., 10.0 / 16). The VCN includes associated subnets, routing tables, and gateways. The VCN resides within a single region, but can span one or more or all of the region's availability domains. A gateway is a virtual interface configured for the VCN and enables communication of traffic in and out of the VCN to one or more endpoints external to the VCN. One or more different types of gateways can be configured for a VCN to enable communication to or from different types of endpoints.

[0055] A VCN can be subdivided into one or more subnetworks, such as one or more subnets. Thus, a subnet is a configuration unit or subdivision that can be created within a VCN. A VCN can have one or more subnets. Each subnet within a VCN is associated with a contiguous range of overlay IP addresses (e.g., 10.0.0.0 / 24 and 10.0.1.0 / 24) that do not overlap with other subnets in that VCN and subnets that represent a subset of the address space within the address space of the VCN.

[0056] Each computing instance is associated with a virtual network interface card (VNIC), which enables the computing instance to join the subnet of the VCN. VNIC is a logical representation of a physical network interface card (NIC). Generally, a VNIC is an interface between an entity (e.g., a computing instance, a service) and a virtual network. VNICs exist in subnets, have one or more associated IP addresses and are associated with security rules or policies. VNICs are equivalent to layer-2 ports on switches. VNICs are attached to computing instances and subnets within the VCN. The VNICs associated with computing instances enable the computing instance to become part of the VCN subnet, and enable the computing instance to communicate (e.g., send and receive packets) with endpoints located on the same subnet as the computing instance, with endpoints in different subnets in the VCN, or with endpoints outside the VCN. Therefore, the VNICs associated with the computing instance determine how the computing instance is connected to endpoints inside and outside the VCN. When a computing instance is created and added to a subnet within the VCN, a VNIC for the computing instance is created and associated with the computing instance. For a subnet that includes a group of computing instances, the subnet contains VNICs corresponding to the group of computing instances, each VNIC being attached to a computing instance within the group of computing instances.

[0057] Each compute instance is assigned a private overlay IP address via the VNIC associated with the compute instance. When a compute instance is created, this private overlay IP address is assigned to the VNIC associated with the compute instance and is used to route traffic in and out of the compute instance. All VNICs in a given subnet use the same routing table, security list, and DHCP options. As described above, each subnet within a VCN is associated with a continuous range of overlay IP addresses (e.g., 10.0.0.0 / 24 and 10.0.1.0 / 24) that do not overlap with other subnets in the VCN and subnets that represent a subset of the address space within the address space of the VCN. For a VNIC on a particular subnet of the VCN, the private overlay IP address assigned to the VNIC is an address from the continuous range of overlay IP addresses allocated for the subnet.

[0058] In some embodiments, in addition to the private overlay IP address, the computing instance may optionally be assigned additional overlay IP addresses, such as, for example, one or more public IP addresses if in a public subnet. These multiple addresses are assigned on the same VNIC or on multiple VNICs associated with the computing instance. However, each instance has a primary VNIC created during instance launch and associated with the overlay private IP address assigned to the instance-this primary VNIC cannot be removed. Additional VNICs (referred to as secondary VNICs) may be added to existing instances in the same availability domain as the primary VNIC. All VNICs are in the same availability domain as the instance. The secondary VNIC may be in a subnet in the same VCN as the primary VNIC, or may be in a different subnet in the same VCN or in a different VCN.

[0059] If the compute instance is in a public subnet, the compute instance can be optionally assigned a public IP address. When a subnet is created, the subnet can be designated as a public subnet or a private subnet. A private subnet means that the resources (e.g., compute instances) and associated VNICs in the subnet cannot have a public overlay IP address. A public subnet means that the resources and associated VNICs in the subnet can have a public IP address. Customers can designate a subnet to exist in a single availability domain or across multiple availability domains in a region or domain.

[0060] As described above, a VCN can be subdivided into one or more subnets. In some embodiments, a virtual router (VR) configured for the VCN (referred to as a VCN VR or just a VR) enables communication between the subnets of the VCN. For a subnet within a VCN, the VR represents a logical gateway for that subnet, which enables the subnet (i.e., the compute instances on that subnet) to communicate with endpoints on other subnets within the VCN and with other endpoints outside the VCN. A VCN VR is a logical entity configured to route traffic between VNICs in a VCN and a virtual gateway ("gateway") associated with the VCN. Gateways are described below with respect to Figure 1is further described. The VCN VR is a layer-3 / IP layer concept. In one embodiment, there is one VCN VR for the VCN, where the VCN VR potentially has an unlimited number of ports addressed by IP addresses, with one port for each subnet of the VCN. In this way, the VCN VR has a different IP address for each subnet in the VCN to which the VCN VR is attached. The VR is also connected to various gateways configured for the VCN. In some embodiments, a specific overlay IP address from the overlay IP address range of a subnet is reserved for the port of the VCN VR for that subnet. For example, consider a VCN with two subnets, each with an associated address range of 10.0 / 16 and 10.1 / 16. For the first subnet within the VCN having an address range of 10.0 / 16, an address from this range is reserved for the port of the VCN VR for that subnet. In some instances, the first IP address from the range may be reserved for the VCN VR. For example, for a subnet with an IP address range of 10.0 / 16, IP address 10.0.0.1 may be reserved for a port of a VCN VR for that subnet. For a second subnet within the same VCN with an address range of 10.1 / 16, the VCN VR may have a port for that second subnet with IP address 10.1.0.1. The VCN VR has a different IP address for each of the subnets in the VCN.

[0061] In some other embodiments, each subnet within a VCN may have its own associated VR that is addressable by the subnet using a reserved or default IP address associated with the VR. The reserved or default IP address may, for example, be the first IP address from a range of IP addresses associated with the subnet. The VNICs in the subnet may communicate (e.g., send and receive packets) with the VRs associated with the subnet using this default or reserved IP address. In such embodiments, the VR is the entry / exit point for the subnet. VRs associated with subnets within the VCN may communicate with other VRs associated with other subnets within the VCN. VRs may also communicate with gateways associated with the VCN. The VR functionality of the subnet is running on or performed by one or more NVDs that perform the functionality of a VNIC for a VNIC in the subnet.

[0062] Routing tables, security rules, and DHCP options can be configured for a VCN. A routing table is a virtual routing table for a VCN and includes rules for routing traffic from subnets within the VCN to destinations outside the VCN through gateways or specially configured instances. A VCN's routing table can be customized to control how packets are forwarded / routed to or from the VCN. DHCP options refer to configuration information that is automatically provided to an instance when it boots up.

[0063] The security rules configured for a VCN represent the overlay firewall rules for the VCN. Security rules can include ingress and egress rules, and specify the types of traffic allowed in and out of instances within the VCN (e.g., based on protocols and ports). Customers can choose whether a given rule is stateful or stateless. For example, a customer can allow incoming SSH traffic from anywhere to a group of instances by establishing a stateful ingress rule with source CIDR 0.0.0.0 / 0 and destination TCP port 22. Security rules can be implemented using network security groups or security lists. A network security group consists of a set of security rules that apply only to resources in that group. On the other hand, a security list includes rules that apply to all resources in any subnet that uses the security list. A VCN can be provisioned with a default security list with default security rules. The DHCP options configured for a VCN provide configuration information that is automatically provided to instances in the VCN when the instances are launched.

[0064] In some embodiments, configuration information for a VCN is determined and stored by a VCN control plane. Configuration information for a VCN may include, for example, information about address ranges associated with the VCN, subnets within the VCN and associated information, one or more VRs associated with the VCN, compute instances in the VCN and associated VNICs, NVDs that perform various virtualized network functions associated with the VCN (e.g., VNICs, VRs, gateways), state information for the VCN, and other VCN-related information. In some embodiments, a VCN distribution service publishes configuration information stored by the VCN control plane, or portions thereof, to the NVD. The distributed information may be used to update information stored and used by the NVD (e.g., forwarding tables, routing tables, etc.) to forward packets to and from compute instances in the VCN.

[0065] In some embodiments, the creation of VCNs and subnets is handled by the VCN control plane (CP), and the initiation of compute instances is handled by the compute control plane. The compute control plane is responsible for allocating physical resources to the compute instances and then calling the VCN control plane to create and attach VNICs to the compute instances. The VCN CP also sends VCN data maps to the VCN data plane, which is configured to perform packet forwarding and routing functions. In some embodiments, the VCN CP provides a distribution service responsible for providing updates to the VCN data plane. An example of a VCN control plane is also provided at Fig.16 , 17 , 18 and 19 (see references 1616, 1716, 1816 and 1916) are depicted and described below.

[0066] Customers can create one or more VCNs using resources hosted by CSPI. Compute instances deployed on customer VCNs can communicate with different endpoints. These endpoints can include endpoints hosted by CSPI and endpoints external to CSPI.

[0067] There are different architectures for using CSPI to implement cloud-based services. Figure 1 , 2 , 3, 4, 5, 16, 17, 18 and 20 and described below. Figure 1 is a high-level diagram illustrating a distributed environment 100 of an overlay or customer VCN hosted by CSPI, according to certain embodiments. Figure 1 The distributed environment depicted in includes multiple components in an overlay network. Figure 1 The distributed environment 100 depicted in FIG. 1 is merely an example and is not intended to unduly limit the scope of the claimed embodiments. Many variations, substitutions, and modifications are possible. For example, in some implementations, Figure 1 The distributed environment depicted in the figure can be a Figure 1 More or fewer systems or components than those shown in FIG. 5 , two or more systems may be combined, or there may be different system configurations or arrangements.

[0068] like Figure 1 As shown in the example depicted in FIG. 1 , the distributed environment 100 includes CSPI 101, which provides services and resources that customers can subscribe to and use to build their virtual cloud networks (VCNs). In some embodiments, CSPI 101 supplies IaaS services to subscribing customers. Data centers within CSPI 101 can be organized into one or more regions. An example region “Region US” 102 is located in Figure 1 . The customer has configured a customer VCN 104 for region 102. The customer can deploy various computing instances on VCN 104, where the computing instances can include virtual machines or bare metal instances. Examples of instances include applications, databases, load balancers, etc.

[0069] exist Figure 1 In the embodiment depicted in , customer VCN 104 includes two subnets, “Subnet-1” and “Subnet-2”, each with its own CIDR IP address range. Figure 1, the coverage IP address range of Subnet-1 is 10.0 / 16 and the address range of Subnet-2 is 10.1 / 16. VCN virtual router 105 represents the logical gateway of the VCN, which enables communication between the subnets of VCN 104 and with other endpoints outside the VCN. VCN VR 105 is configured to route traffic between VNICs in VCN 104 and gateways associated with VCN 104. VCN VR 105 provides ports for each subnet of VCN 104. For example, VR 105 can provide a port with IP address 10.0.0.1 for Subnet-1 and a port with IP address 10.1.0.1 for Subnet-2.

[0070] Multiple computing instances can be deployed on each subnet, where the computing instances can be virtual machine instances and / or bare metal instances. The computing instances in a subnet can be hosted by one or more hosts within CSPI 101. The computing instances join the subnet via the VNIC associated with the computing instances. For example, Figure 1 As shown in , compute instance C1 is part of subnet-1 via a VNIC associated with the compute instance. Similarly, compute instance C2 is part of subnet-1 via a VNIC associated with C2. In a similar manner, multiple compute instances (which may be virtual machine instances or bare metal instances) may be part of subnet-1. Each compute instance is assigned a private overlay IP address and MAC address via its associated VNIC. For example, in Figure 1 , compute instance C1 has an overlay IP address of 10.0.0.2 and a MAC address of M1, while compute instance C2 has a private overlay IP address of 10.0.0.3 and a MAC address of M2. Each compute instance in subnet-1 (including compute instances C1 and C2) has a default route to VCN VR 105 using IP address 10.0.0.1, which is the IP address of the port of VCN VR 105 for subnet-1.

[0071] Subnet-2 may have multiple computing instances deployed on it, including virtual machine instances and / or bare metal instances. Figure 1 As shown in , compute instances D1 and D2 are part of subnet-2 via VNICs associated with the respective compute instances. Figure 1 In the embodiment depicted in , compute instance D1 has an overlay IP address 10.1.0.2 and a MAC address MM1, while compute instance D2 has a private overlay IP address 10.1.0.3 and a MAC address MM2. Each compute instance in subnet-2 (including compute instances D1 and D2) has a default route to VCN VR 105 using IP address 10.1.0.1, which is the IP address of the port of VCNVR 105 for subnet-2.

[0072] VCN A 104 may also include one or more load balancers. For example, a load balancer may be provided for a subnet and may be configured to load balance traffic across multiple computing instances on the subnet. A load balancer may also be provided to load balance traffic across subnets in a VCN.

[0073] A specific computing instance deployed on VCN 104 can communicate with a variety of different endpoints. These endpoints can include endpoints hosted by CSPI 200 and endpoints external to CSPI 200. Endpoints hosted by CSPI 101 can include: endpoints on the same subnet as a specific computing instance (e.g., communication between two computing instances in subnet-1); endpoints on different subnets but within the same VCN (e.g., communication between a computing instance in subnet-1 and a computing instance in subnet-2); endpoints in different VCNs in the same region (e.g., communication between a computing instance in subnet-1 and an endpoint in VCN 106 or 110 in the same region, communication between a computing instance in subnet-1 and an endpoint in service network 110 in the same region); or endpoints in VCNs in different regions (e.g., communication between a computing instance in subnet-1 and an endpoint in VCN 108 in a different region). Computing instances in subnets hosted by CSPI 101 can also communicate with endpoints that are not hosted by CSPI 101 (i.e., external to CSPI 101). These external endpoints include endpoints in the customer's on-premises network 116, endpoints within other remote cloud-hosted networks 118, public endpoints 114 accessible via a public network such as the Internet, and other endpoints.

[0074] Use VNICs associated with source and destination computing instances to facilitate communication between computing instances on the same subnet. For example, computing instance C1 in subnet-1 may want to send a packet to computing instance C2 in subnet-1. For packets originating from a source computing instance and whose destination is another computing instance in the same subnet, the packet is first processed by the VNIC associated with the source computing instance. The processing performed by the VNIC associated with the source computing instance may include determining the destination information of the packet from the packet header, identifying any policies (e.g., security lists) configured for the VNIC associated with the source computing instance, determining the next hop of the packet, performing any packet encapsulation / decapsulation functions as needed, and then forwarding / routing the packet to the next hop, with the purpose of facilitating communication of the packet to its intended destination. When the destination computing instance is in the same subnet as the source computing instance, the VNIC associated with the source computing instance is configured to identify the VNIC associated with the destination computing instance and forward the packet to the VNIC for processing. The VNIC associated with the destination computing instance is then executed and forwards the packet to the destination computing instance.

[0075] For packets to be communicated from a compute instance in a subnet to an endpoint in a different subnet in the same VCN, the communication is facilitated by the VNICs associated with the source and destination compute instances and the VCN VRs. Figure 1 If compute instance C1 in subnet-1 wants to send a packet to compute instance D1 in subnet-2, the packet is first processed by the VNIC associated with compute instance C1. The VNIC associated with compute instance C1 is configured to route the packet to VCN VR 105 using the default route or port 10.0.0.1 of the VCN VR. VCN VR 105 is configured to route the packet to subnet-2 using port 10.1.0.1. The packet is then received and processed by the VNIC associated with D1, and the VNIC forwards the packet to compute instance D1.

[0076] For packets to be communicated from a compute instance in VCN 104 to an endpoint outside of VCN 104, communications are facilitated by a VNIC associated with the source compute instance, a VCN VR 105, and a gateway associated with VCN 104. One or more types of gateways may be associated with VCN 104. A gateway is an interface between a VCN and another endpoint, where the other endpoint is outside of the VCN. A gateway is a layer-3 / IP layer concept and enables a VCN to communicate with an endpoint outside of the VCN. Thus, a gateway facilitates traffic flow between a VCN and other VCNs or networks. Various different types of gateways may be configured for a VCN to facilitate different types of communications with different types of endpoints. Depending on the gateway, communications may be over a public network (e.g., the Internet) or over a private network. Various communication protocols may be used for these communications.

[0077] For example, compute instance C1 may want to communicate with an endpoint outside of VCN 104. The packet may first be processed by a VNIC associated with source compute instance C1. VNIC processing determines that the destination of the packet is outside of C1's subnet-1. The VNIC associated with C1 may forward the packet to VCN VR 105 of VCN 104. VCN VR 105 then processes the packet and, as part of the processing, determines a specific gateway associated with VCN 104 as the next hop for the packet based on the packet's destination. VCN VR 105 may then forward the packet to the specific identified gateway. For example, if the destination is an endpoint within a customer's on-premises network, the packet may be forwarded by VCN VR 105 to a dynamic routing gateway (DRG) gateway 122 configured for VCN 104. The packet may then be forwarded from the gateway to the next hop to facilitate communication of the packet to its ultimate intended destination.

[0078] A variety of different types of gateways can be configured for a VCN. Examples of gateways that can be configured for a VCN are in Figure 1 An example of a gateway associated with a VCN is also shown in Fig.16 , 17 , 18 and 19 (e.g., gateways referenced by reference numerals 1634, 1636, 1638, 1734, 1736, 1738, 1834, 1836, 1838, 1934, 1936 and 1938) and described below. Figure 1As shown in the embodiment depicted in , a dynamic routing gateway (DRG) 122 can be added to or associated with a customer VCN 104 and provides a path for private network traffic communication between the customer VCN 104 and another endpoint, where the other endpoint can be a customer's on-premises network 116, a VCN 108 in a different region of CSPI 101, or another remote cloud network 118 not hosted by CSPI 101. The customer's on-premises network 116 can be a customer network or a customer data center built using the customer's resources. Access to the customer's on-premises network 116 is typically very limited. For customers who have both a customer's on-premises network 116 and one or more VCNs 104 deployed or hosted in the cloud by CSPI 101, the customer may want their on-premises network 116 and their cloud-based VCN 104 to be able to communicate with each other. This enables customers to build an extended hybrid environment that includes the customer's VCN 104 hosted by CSPI 101 and their on-premises network 116. DRG 122 enables this communication. To enable such communication, a communication channel 124 is established, where one endpoint of the channel is in the customer premises network 116 and the other endpoint is in the CSPI 101 and connected to the customer VCN 104. The communication channel 124 may pass through a public communication network such as the Internet or a private communication network. A variety of different communication protocols may be used, such as IPsec VPN technology over a public communication network (such as the Internet), Oracle's FastConnect technology using a private network instead of a public network, and the like. The equipment or devices in the customer premises network 116 that forms one endpoint of the communication channel 124 are referred to as customer premises equipment (CPE), such as Figure 1 CPE 126 is depicted in FIG. On the CSPI 101 side, the endpoint may be a host executing DRG 122 .

[0079] In some embodiments, a remote peering connection (RPC) can be added to the DRG, which allows a customer to peer one VCN with another VCN in a different region. Using such an RPC, a customer VCN 104 can use a DRG 122 to connect with a VCN 108 in another region. The DRG 122 can also be used to communicate with other remote cloud networks 118 that are not hosted by the CSPI 101, such as the Microsoft Azure cloud, the Amazon AWS cloud, etc.

[0080] like Figure 1As shown in FIG. 1 , an Internet Gateway (IGW) 120 can be configured for a customer VCN 104 that enables computing instances on the VCN 104 to communicate with public endpoints 114 accessible via a public network such as the Internet. The IGW 120 is a gateway that connects the VCN to a public network such as the Internet. The IGW 120 enables public subnets within a VCN such as the VCN 104 (where resources in the public subnet have public overlay IP addresses) to directly access public endpoints 112 on a public network 114 such as the Internet. Using the IGW 120, a connection can be initiated from a subnet within the VCN 104 or from the Internet.

[0081] A network address translation (NAT) gateway 128 can be configured for a customer's VCN 104 and enables cloud resources in the customer's VCN that do not have dedicated public overlay IP addresses to access the Internet, and the NAT gateway 128 does so without exposing those resources to direct incoming Internet connections (e.g., L4-L7 connections). This enables private subnets within a VCN (such as Private Subnet-1 in VCN 104) to have private access to public endpoints on the Internet. In a NAT gateway, connections can only be initiated from a private subnet to the public Internet, and not from the Internet to a private subnet.

[0082] In some embodiments, a service gateway (SGW) 126 may be configured for a customer VCN 104 and provide a path for private network traffic between the VCN 104 and supported service endpoints in the service network 110. In some embodiments, the service network 110 may be provided by a CSP and may provide a variety of services. An example of such a service network is Oracle's service network, which provides a variety of services that can be used by customers. For example, a computing instance (e.g., a database system) in a private subnet of a customer VCN 104 may back up data to a service endpoint (e.g., an object storage) without requiring a public IP address or access to the Internet. In some embodiments, a VCN may have only one SGW, and connections can only be made from a subnet within the VCN and not from the service network 110. If a VCN is peered with another VCN, resources in the other VCN generally do not have access to the SGW. Resources in a local deployment network connected to the VCN via FastConnect or VPN Connect can also use the service gateway configured for the VCN.

[0083] In some implementations, the SGW 126 uses the concept of a service classless inter-domain routing (CIDR) label, which is a string that represents the public IP address range of all regions of interest for a service or group of services. Customers use service CIDR labels when configuring the SGW and related routing rules to control traffic to services. Customers can choose to use service CIDR labels when configuring security rules so that if the public IP addresses of the services change in the future, they do not need to be adjusted.

[0084] A Local Peering Internet Gateway (LPG) 132 is a gateway that can be added to a customer VCN 104 and enables the VCN 104 to peer with another VCN in the same region. Peering means that the VCNs communicate using private IP addresses without the traffic traversing a public network such as the Internet, or without routing the traffic through the customer's on-premises network 116. In a preferred embodiment, the VCN has a separate LPG for each peering it establishes. Local peering or VCN peering is a common practice for establishing network connectivity between different applications or infrastructure management functions.

[0085] Service providers, such as providers of services in service network 110, can use different access models to provide access to services. According to the public access model, services can be exposed as public endpoints that are publicly accessible by computing instances in customer VCNs via public networks such as the Internet and / or can be privately accessed via SGW 126. According to a specific private access model, services are made accessible as private IP endpoints in private subnets in the customer's VCN. This is called private endpoint (PE) access and enables service providers to expose their services as instances in the customer's private network. Private endpoint resources represent services within the customer's VCN. Each PE is represented by a VNIC (referred to as a PE-VNIC, with one or more private IPs) in a subnet selected by the customer in the customer's VCN. Therefore, PE provides a method for presenting services within a private customer VCN subnet using VNICs. Since the endpoints are exposed as VNICs, all features associated with VNICs (such as routing rules, security lists, etc.) are now available to PE VNICs.

[0086] Service providers can register their services to enable access through PEs. Providers can associate policies with services, which limits the visibility of the service to customer tenancies. Providers can register multiple services under a single virtual IP address (VIP), especially for multi-tenant services. There can be multiple such private endpoints (in multiple VCNs) representing the same service.

[0087] The computing instances in the private subnet can then access the service using the private IP address of the PE VNIC or the service DNS name. The computing instances in the customer VCN can access the service by sending traffic to the private IP address of the PE in the customer VCN. The private access gateway (PAGW) 130 is a gateway resource that can be attached to a service provider VCN (e.g., a VCN in the service network 110) that acts as an entry / exit point for all traffic from / to the private endpoints of the customer subnet. PAGW 130 enables providers to expand the number of PE connections without utilizing their internal IP address resources. Providers only need to configure one PAGW for any number of services registered in a single VCN. Providers can represent services as private endpoints in multiple VCNs for one or more customers. From the customer's perspective, the PE VNIC is not attached to the customer's instance, but appears to be attached to the service that the customer wants to interact with. Traffic destined for the private endpoint is routed to the service via PAGW 130. These are called customer-to-service private connections (C2S connections).

[0088] The PE concept can also be used to extend private access to services to the customer's on-premises networks and data centers by allowing traffic to flow over FastConnect / IPsec links and private endpoints in the customer's VCN. Private access to services can also be extended to the customer's peer VCNs by allowing traffic to flow between the LPG 132 and the PE in the customer's VCN.

[0089] A customer can control routing in a VCN at the subnet level, so a customer can specify which subnets in a customer's VCN, such as VCN 104, use each gateway. The routing table of a VCN is used to determine whether traffic is allowed to leave the VCN through a particular gateway. For example, in a particular instance, a routing table for a public subnet within a customer VCN 104 may send non-local traffic through IGW 120. A routing table for a private subnet within the same customer VCN 104 may send traffic destined for a CSP service through SGW 126. All remaining traffic may be sent via NAT gateway 128. The routing table only controls traffic leaving the VCN.

[0090] The security list associated with the VCN is used to control the traffic that enters the VCN via the gateway via an inbound connection. All resources in the subnet use the same routing table and security list. The security list can be used to control the specific types of traffic allowed in and out of the instances in the VCN subnet. Security list rules can include ingress (inbound) and egress (outbound) rules. For example, an ingress rule can specify an allowed source address range, and an egress rule can specify an allowed destination address range. Security rules can specify specific protocols (e.g., TCP, ICMP), specific ports (e.g., 22 for SSH, 3389 for Windows RDP), etc. In some implementations, the operating system of the instance can enforce its own firewall rules that are consistent with the security list rules. Rules can be stateful (e.g., in the absence of an explicit security list rule for response traffic, connections are tracked and responses are automatically allowed) or stateless.

[0091] Access from a customer VCN (i.e., through resources or computing instances deployed on VCN 104) can be classified as public access, private access, or dedicated access. Public access refers to an access model in which a public IP address or NAT is used to access a public endpoint. Private access enables customer workloads in VCN 104 (e.g., resources in a private subnet) with private IP addresses to access services without traversing a public network such as the Internet. In some embodiments, CSPI 101 enables customer VCN workloads with private IP addresses to access services (public service endpoints) using a service gateway. Thus, the service gateway supplies a private access model by establishing a virtual link between the customer's VCN and the public endpoint of the service residing outside the customer's private network.

[0092] Additionally, CSPI can use technologies such as FastConnect public peering to provision dedicated public access, where customer on-premises instances can use FastConnect connections to access one or more services in a customer's VCN without traversing a public network such as the Internet. CSPI can also use FastConnect private peering to provision dedicated private access, where customer on-premises instances with private IP addresses can use FastConnect connections to access the customer's VCN workloads. FastConnect is a network connectivity alternative to using the public Internet to connect a customer's on-premises network to CSPI and its services. When compared to Internet-based connections, FastConnect provides a simple, resilient, and economical way to create dedicated and private connections with higher bandwidth options and a more reliable and consistent networking experience.

[0093] Figure 1The descriptions attached above describe various virtualized components in an example virtual network.As described above, a virtual network is built on top of an underlying physical or substrate network. Figure 2 A simplified architectural diagram of the physical components that provide the underlying virtual network in a physical network within CSPI 200 according to certain embodiments is depicted. As shown, CSPI 200 provides a distributed environment that includes components and resources (e.g., computing, storage, and networking resources) provided by a cloud service provider (CSP). These components and resources are used to provide cloud services (e.g., IaaS services) to subscribing customers (i.e., customers who have subscribed to one or more services provided by the CSP). Based on the services subscribed by the customer, a subset of the resources (e.g., computing, storage, and networking resources) of CSPI 200 are provided to the customer. The customer can then use the physical computing, storage, and networking resources provided by CSPI 200 to build their own cloud-based (i.e., CSPI-hosted) customizable and private virtual networks. As previously described, these customer networks are referred to as virtual cloud networks (VCNs). Customers can deploy one or more customer resources, such as computing instances, on these customer VCNs. The computing instances can be in the form of virtual machines, bare metal instances, etc. CSPI 200 provides infrastructure and a set of complementary cloud services that enable customers to build and run a wide range of applications and services in a highly available hosting environment.

[0094] exist Figure 2 In the example embodiment depicted in FIG. 2 , the physical components of CSPI 200 include one or more physical hosts or physical servers (e.g., 202, 206, 208), network virtualization devices (NVDs) (e.g., 210, 212), top-of-rack (TOR) switches (e.g., 214, 216), and physical networks (e.g., 218) and switches in physical network 218. The physical hosts or servers can host and execute various computing instances that join one or more subnets of the VCN. The computing instances can include virtual machine instances and bare metal instances. For example, Figure 1 The various computational examples depicted in Figure 2 The physical hosts depicted in Figure 1. Virtual machine compute instances in a VCN can be executed by a single host or by multiple different hosts. Physical hosts can also host virtual hosts, container-based hosts or functions, etc. Figure 1 The VNIC and VCN VR depicted in the figure can be represented by Figure 2 The NVD implementation depicted in FIG. Figure 1 The gateway depicted in can be Figure 2 The host and / or NVD execution depicted in FIG.

[0095] A host or server may execute a hypervisor (also referred to as a virtual machine monitor or VMM) that creates and enables a virtualized environment on the host. Virtualization or a virtualized environment facilitates cloud-based computing. One or more computing instances may be created, executed, and managed on the host by a hypervisor on the host. The hypervisor on the host enables the physical computing resources (e.g., computing, memory, and networking resources) of the host to be shared between the various computing instances executed by the host.

[0096] For example, Figure 2 As depicted in FIG, hosts 202 and 208 execute hypervisors 260 and 266, respectively. These hypervisors may be implemented using software, firmware, or hardware, or a combination thereof. Typically, a hypervisor is a process or software layer that sits on top of a host operating system (OS), which in turn executes on the host's hardware processors. A hypervisor provides a virtualized environment by enabling the host's physical computing resources (e.g., processing resources such as processors / cores, memory resources, networking resources) to be shared between various virtual machine computing instances executed by the host. For example, in Figure 2 In the embodiment of the present invention, the hypervisor 260 can be located on top of the OS of the host 202 and enable the computing resources (e.g., processing, memory, and networking resources) of the host 202 to be shared between computing instances (e.g., virtual machines) executed by the host 202. The virtual machine can have its own operating system (called a guest operating system), which can be the same as or different from the OS of the host. The operating system of the virtual machine executed by the host can be the same as or different from the operating system of another virtual machine executed by the same host. Therefore, the hypervisor enables multiple operating systems to execute simultaneously with each other while sharing the same computing resources of the host. Figure 2 The hosts depicted in FIG. 1 may have the same or different types of hypervisors.

[0097] Compute instances can be virtual machine instances or bare metal instances. Figure 2 , compute instance 268 on host 202 and compute instance 274 on host 208 are examples of virtual machine instances. Host 206 is an example of a bare metal instance provided to a customer.

[0098] In some instances, the entire host may be provisioned to a single customer, and all one or more computing instances (virtual machines or bare metal instances) hosted by the host belong to the same customer. In other instances, the host may be shared between multiple customers (i.e., multiple tenants). In such a multi-tenancy scenario, the host may host virtual machine computing instances belonging to different customers. These computing instances may be members of different VCNs for different customers. In some embodiments, bare metal computing instances are hosted by bare metal servers without a hypervisor. When bare metal computing instances are provisioned, a single customer or tenant maintains control of the physical CPU, memory, and network interfaces of the host hosting the bare metal instance, and the host is not shared with other customers or tenants.

[0099] As previously described, each compute instance that is part of a VCN is associated with a VNIC that enables the compute instance to become a member of a subnet of the VCN. The VNIC associated with a compute instance facilitates the communication of packets or frames to and from the compute instance. When a compute instance is created, a VNIC is associated with the compute instance. In some embodiments, for a compute instance executed by a host, the VNIC associated with the compute instance is executed by an NVD connected to the host. For example, in Figure 2 2, host 202 executes virtual machine compute instance 268 associated with VNIC 276, and VNIC 276 is executed by NVD 210 connected to host 202. As another example, bare metal instance 272 hosted by host 206 is associated with VNIC 280 executed by NVD 212 connected to host 206. As yet another example, VNIC 284 is associated with compute instance 274 executed by host 208, and VNIC 284 is executed by NVD 212 connected to host 208.

[0100] For compute instances hosted by a host, the NVD connected to that host also executes the VCN VR corresponding to the VCN of which the compute instance is a member. Figure 2 In the embodiment depicted in , NVD 210 executes VCN VR 277 corresponding to the VCN of which compute instance 268 is a member. NVD 212 may also execute one or more VCN VRs 283 corresponding to VCNs corresponding to compute instances hosted by hosts 206 and 208.

[0101] The host may include one or more network interface cards (NICs) that enable the host to connect to other devices. The NIC on the host may provide one or more ports (or interfaces) that enable the host to communicatively connect to another device. For example, the host may connect to the NVD using one or more ports (or interfaces) provided on the host and the NVD. The host may also connect to other devices, such as another host.

[0102] For example, in Figure 2 2, host 202 is connected to NVD 210 using link 220 extending between port 234 provided by NIC 232 of host 202 and port 236 of NVD 210. Host 206 is connected to NVD 212 using link 224 extending between port 246 provided by NIC 244 of host 206 and port 248 of NVD 212. Host 208 is connected to NVD 212 using link 226 extending between port 252 provided by NIC 250 of host 208 and port 254 of NVD 212.

[0103] The NVD is in turn connected via a communication link to a top-of-rack (TOR) switch, which is connected to a physical network 218 (also referred to as a switch fabric). In some embodiments, the links between the host and the NVD and between the NVD and the TOR switch are Ethernet links. For example, in Figure 2 , NVDs 210 and 212 are connected to TOR switches 214 and 216 using links 228 and 230, respectively. In some embodiments, links 220, 224, 226, 228, and 230 are Ethernet links. A collection of hosts and NVDs connected to a TOR is sometimes referred to as a rack.

[0104] Physical network 218 provides a communication structure that enables TOR switches to communicate with each other. Physical network 218 can be a multi-layer network. In some implementations, physical network 218 is a multi-layer Clos network of switches, where TOR switches 214 and 216 represent leaf nodes of the multi-layer and multi-node physical switching network 218. Different Clos network configurations are possible, including but not limited to 2-layer networks, 3-layer networks, 4-layer networks, 5-layer networks, and general "n"-layer networks. Examples of Clos networks are shown in Figure 5 are depicted in and described below.

[0105] Various different connection configurations between the host and the NVD are possible, such as one-to-one configuration, many-to-one configuration, one-to-many configuration, etc. In a one-to-one configuration implementation, each host is connected to its own separate NVD. Figure 2 In , host 202 is connected to NVD 210 via NIC 232 of host 202. In a many-to-one configuration, multiple hosts are connected to one NVD. Figure 2 , hosts 206 and 208 are connected to the same NVD 212 via NICs 244 and 250, respectively.

[0106] In a one-to-many configuration, one host connects to multiple NVDs. Figure 3An example within CSPI 300 is shown, where a host is connected to multiple NVDs. Figure 3 , a host 302 includes a network interface card (NIC) 304 that includes a plurality of ports 306 and 308. The host 300 is connected to a first NVD 310 via port 306 and link 320, and to a second NVD 312 via port 308 and link 322. Ports 306 and 308 may be Ethernet ports, and links 320 and 322 between the host 302 and the NVDs 310 and 312 may be Ethernet links. The NVD 310 is in turn connected to a first TOR switch 314, and the NVD 312 is connected to a second TOR switch 316. The links between the NVDs 310 and 312 and the TOR switches 314 and 316 may be Ethernet links. The TOR switches 314 and 316 represent layer 0 switching devices in a multi-layer physical network 318.

[0107] Figure 3 The arrangement depicted in FIG. 3 provides two separate physical network paths to and from the physical switch network 318 to the host 302: a first path through the TOR switch 314 to the NVD 310 to the host 302, and a second path through the TOR switch 316 to the NVD 312 to the host 302. The separate paths provide enhanced availability (referred to as high availability) of the host 302. If there is a problem in one of the paths (e.g., a link in one of the paths fails) or in one of the devices (e.g., a particular NVD is not functioning), another path can be used for communications to / from the host 302.

[0108] exist Figure 3 In the configuration depicted in , the host connects to two different NVDs using two different ports provided by the host's NIC. In other embodiments, the host may include multiple NICs that enable connectivity of the host to multiple NVDs.

[0109] Return to reference Figure 2 NVD is a physical device or component that performs one or more network and / or storage virtualization functions. NVD can be any device with one or more processing units (e.g., CPU, network processing unit (NPU), FPGA, packet processing pipeline, etc.), memory including cache, and ports. Various virtualization functions can be performed by software / firmware executed by one or more processing units of NVD.

[0110] NVD can be implemented in a variety of different forms. For example, in some embodiments, NVD is implemented as an interface card called a smartNIC or intelligent NIC, which is equipped with an embedded processor. SmartNIC is a device separate from the NIC on the host. Figure 2, NVDs 210 and 212 may be implemented as smartNICs connected to host 202 and hosts 206 and 208, respectively.

[0111] However, smartNIC is only one example of NVD implementation. Various other implementations are possible. For example, in some other implementations, NVD or one or more functions performed by NVD may be incorporated into or performed by one or more hosts, one or more TOR switches, and other components of CSPI 200. For example, NVD may be embodied in a host, where the functions performed by NVD are performed by the host. As another example, NVD may be part of a TOR switch, or a TOR switch may be configured to perform functions performed by NVD, which enables the TOR switch to perform various complex packet conversions for a public cloud. A TOR that performs NVD functions is sometimes referred to as an intelligent TOR. In yet other implementations in which virtual machine (VM) instances are supplied to customers instead of bare metal (BM) instances, the functions performed by NVD may be implemented inside the hypervisor of the host. In some other implementations, some of the functions of NVD may be offloaded to centralized services running on a series of hosts.

[0112] In some embodiments, such as when implemented as Figure 2 When a smartNIC is shown, the NVD may include multiple physical ports that enable the NVD to connect to one or more hosts and one or more TOR switches. Ports on the NVD may be classified as host-facing ports (also called "south ports") or network-facing or TOR-facing ports (also called "north ports"). The host-facing ports of the NVD are the ports used to connect the NVD to the host. Figure 2 Examples of host-facing ports include port 236 on NVD 210 and ports 248 and 254 on NVD 212. The network-facing ports of the NVD are the ports used to connect the NVD to the TOR switch. Figure 2 Examples of network-facing ports include port 256 on NVD 210 and port 258 on NVD 212. Figure 2 As shown in FIG. 2 , NVD 210 is connected to TOR switch 214 using link 228 extending from port 256 of NVD 210 to TOR switch 214. Similarly, NVD 212 is connected to TOR switch 216 using link 230 extending from port 258 of NVD 212 to TOR switch 216.

[0113] NVD receives packets and frames (e.g., packets and frames generated by compute instances hosted by the host) from the host via the host-facing port, and after performing necessary packet processing, can forward the packets and frames to the TOR switch via the network-facing port of NVD. NVD can receive packets and frames from the TOR switch via the network-facing port of NVD, and after performing necessary packet processing, can forward the packets and frames to the host via the host-facing port of NVD.

[0114] In some embodiments, there may be multiple ports and associated links between the NVD and the TOR switch. These ports and links may be aggregated to form a link aggregator group (referred to as a LAG) of multiple ports or links. Link aggregation allows multiple physical links between two endpoints (e.g., between the NVD and the TOR switch) to be treated as a single logical link. All physical links in a given LAG may operate in full-duplex mode at the same speed. LAG helps to improve the bandwidth and reliability of the connection between the two endpoints. If one of the physical links in the LAG fails, the traffic is dynamically and transparently reassigned to one of the other physical links in the LAG. The aggregated physical links deliver higher bandwidth than each individual link. Multiple ports associated with the LAG are treated as a single logical port. Traffic may be load balanced across multiple physical links of the LAG. One or more LAGs may be configured between two endpoints. The two endpoints may be located between the NVD and the TOR switch, between the host and the NVD, and the like.

[0115] NVD implements or performs network virtualization functions. These functions are performed by software / firmware executed by NVD. Examples of network virtualization functions include, but are not limited to: packet encapsulation and decapsulation functions; functions for creating VCN networks; functions for implementing network policies such as VCN security lists (firewall) functions; functions for facilitating routing and forwarding of packets in and out of computing instances in the VCN; and so on. In some embodiments, upon receiving a packet, NVD is configured to execute a packet processing pipeline for processing the packet and determining how the packet is forwarded or routed. As part of this packet processing pipeline, NVD may execute one or more virtual functions associated with an overlay network, such as executing a VNIC associated with a computing instance in the VCN, executing a virtual router (VR) associated with the VCN, encapsulation and decapsulation of packets to facilitate forwarding or routing in a virtual network, execution of certain gateways (e.g., local peer Internet gateways), security lists, network security groups, network address translation (NAT) functions (e.g., conversion of public IPs to private IPs on a host-by-host basis), throttling functions, and implementation of other functions.

[0116] In some embodiments, the packet processing data path in NVD may include multiple packet pipelines, each consisting of a series of packet transformation stages. In some implementations, after a packet is received, the packet is parsed and classified into a single pipeline. The packet is then processed in a linear manner, one stage after another, until the packet is discarded or sent out through the interface of NVD. These stages provide basic functional packet processing building blocks (e.g., verifying headers, enforcing throttling, inserting new layer 2 headers, enforcing L4 firewalls, VCN encapsulation / decapsulation, etc.), so that new pipelines can be constructed by combining existing stages, and new functionality can be added by creating new stages and inserting them into existing pipelines.

[0117] NVD can perform both control plane and data plane functions corresponding to the control plane and data plane of the VCN. An example of a VCN control plane is also provided in Fig.16 , 17 , 18 and 19 (see reference numerals 1616, 1716, 1816 and 1916) and described below. An example of a VCN data plane is Fig.16 , 17 , 18 and 19 (see reference numerals 1618, 1718, 1818 and 1918) and described as follows. The control plane functions include functions for configuring the network to control how data is forwarded (e.g., establishing routes and routing tables, configuring VNICs, etc.). In some embodiments, a VCN control plane is provided that centrally calculates all overlay-to-substrate mappings and publishes them to NVD and to virtual network edge devices such as various gateways (such as DRG, SGW, IGW, etc.). Firewall rules can also be published using the same mechanism. In some embodiments, NVD only obtains mappings related to the NVD. The data plane functions include functions for actual routing / forwarding of packets based on the configuration established using the control plane. The VCN data plane is implemented by encapsulating the customer's network packets before they pass through the underlying network. The encapsulation / decapsulation functions are implemented on the NVD. In some embodiments, the NVD is configured to intercept all network packets entering and leaving the host and perform network virtualization functions.

[0118] As described above, NVD performs various virtualization functions including VNICs and VCN VRs. NVD can execute VNICs associated with computing instances hosted by one or more hosts connected to the VNICs. For example, Figure 2, NVD 210 executes the functions of VNIC 276 associated with compute instance 268 hosted by host 202 connected to NVD 210. As another example, NVD 212 executes VNIC 280 associated with bare metal compute instance 272 hosted by host 206, and executes VNIC 284 associated with compute instance 274 hosted by host 208. A host may host compute instances belonging to different VCNs that belong to different customers, and an NVD connected to the host may execute the VNICs corresponding to the compute instances (i.e., perform VNIC-related functions).

[0119] NVD also implements a VCN virtual router corresponding to the VCN of the compute instance. Figure 2 , NVD 210 executes VCN VR 277 corresponding to the VCN to which compute instance 268 belongs. NVD 212 executes one or more VCN VRs 283 corresponding to one or more VCNs to which compute instances hosted by hosts 206 and 208 belong. In some embodiments, the VCN VR corresponding to the VCN is executed by all NVDs connected to the host that hosts at least one compute instance belonging to the VCN. If a host hosts compute instances belonging to different VCNs, the NVDs connected to the host can execute VCN VRs corresponding to those different VCNs.

[0120] In addition to the VNICs and VCN VRs, NVD may execute various software (e.g., daemons) and include one or more hardware components that facilitate the various network virtualization functions performed by NVD. For simplicity, these various components are grouped together as Figure 2” as depicted in . For example, NVD 210 includes packet processing component 286, and NVD 212 includes packet processing component 288. For example, the packet processing component of NVD may include a packet processor configured to interact with the port and hardware interface of NVD to monitor all packets received by NVD and communicated using NVD and store network information. The network information may, for example, include network flow information and per-flow information (e.g., per-flow statistics) that identify different network flows processed by NVD. In some embodiments, network flow information may be stored on a per-VNIC basis. The packet processor may perform operations on a per-packet basis and implement stateful NAT and L4 firewall (FW). As another example, the packet processing component may include a replication agent configured to copy information stored by NVD to one or more different replication target storages. As yet another example, the packet processing component may include a logging agent configured to perform the logging function of NVD. The packet processing component may also include software for monitoring the performance and health of NVD and possibly also monitoring the status and health of other components connected to NVD.

[0121] Figure 1 Components of an example virtual or overlay network are shown, including a VCN, subnets within the VCN, compute instances deployed on the subnets, VNICs associated with the compute instances, VRs for the VCN, and a set of gateways configured for the VCN. Figure 1 The overlay component depicted in can be composed of Figure 2 For example, a compute instance in a VCN can be executed or hosted by one or more physical components depicted in the diagram. Figure 2 . For compute instances hosted by a host, the VNIC associated with the compute instance is typically executed by an NVD connected to the host (i.e., the VNIC functionality is provided by the NVD connected to the host). The VCN VR functionality of a VCN is executed by all NVDs connected to the hosts that host or execute compute instances that are part of the VCN. The gateways associated with a VCN can be executed by one or more different types of NVDs. For example, some gateways can be executed by smartNICs, while others can be executed by one or more hosts or other implementations of NVDs.

[0122] As described above, a compute instance in a customer VCN can communicate with a variety of different endpoints, where the endpoint can be in the same subnet as the source compute instance, in a different subnet but in the same VCN as the source compute instance, or with an endpoint external to the source compute instance's VCN. These communications are facilitated using VNICs associated with the compute instances, VCN VRs, and gateways associated with the VCN.

[0123] For communication between two computing instances on the same subnet in a VCN, the communication is facilitated using VNICs associated with the source and destination computing instances. The source and destination computing instances may be hosted by the same host or different hosts. Packets originating from the source computing instance may be forwarded from the host hosting the source computing instance to the NVD connected to the host. On the NVD, the packet is processed using a packet processing pipeline, which may include the execution of a VNIC associated with the source computing instance. Since the destination endpoint of the packet is located within the same subnet, the execution of the VNIC associated with the source computing instance causes the packet to be forwarded to the NVD executing the VNIC associated with the destination computing instance, which then processes the packet and forwards the packet to the destination computing instance. The VNICs associated with the source and destination computing instances may be executed on the same NVD (e.g., when both the source and destination computing instances are hosted by the same host) or on different NVDs (e.g., when the source and destination computing instances are hosted by different hosts connected to different NVDs). The VNIC may use the routing / forwarding table stored by the NVD to determine the next hop of the packet.

[0124] For packets to be communicated from a compute instance in a subnet to an endpoint in a different subnet in the same VCN, packets originating from a source compute instance are communicated from a host hosting the source compute instance to an NVD connected to the host. On the NVD, packets are processed using a packet processing pipeline, which may include the execution of one or more VNICs and VRs associated with the VCN. For example, as part of the packet processing pipeline, the NVD executes or calls a function corresponding to a VNIC associated with the source compute instance (also referred to as executing the VNIC). The function executed by the VNIC may include checking the VLAN tag on the packet. Since the destination of the packet is outside the subnet, the VCN VR function is next called and executed by the NVD. The VCN VR then routes the packet to the NVD that executes the VNIC associated with the destination compute instance. The VNIC associated with the destination compute instance then processes the packet and forwards the packet to the destination compute instance. The VNICs associated with the source and destination compute instances may be executed on the same NVD (e.g., when both the source and destination compute instances are hosted by the same host) or on different NVDs (e.g., when the source and destination compute instances are hosted by different hosts connected to different NVDs).

[0125] If the destination of the packet is outside the VCN of the source compute instance, the packet originating from the source compute instance is communicated from the host hosting the source compute instance to the NVD connected to the host. The NVD executes the VNIC associated with the source compute instance. Since the destination endpoint of the packet is outside the VCN, the packet is then processed by the VCN VR of that VCN. The NVD invokes the VCN VR function, which can cause the packet to be forwarded to the NVD executing the appropriate gateway associated with the VCN. For example, if the destination is an endpoint within the customer's on-premises network, the packet can be forwarded by the VCN VR to the NVD executing the DRG gateway configured for the VCN. The VCN VR can be executed on the same NVD as the NVD executing the VNIC associated with the source compute instance or by a different NVD. The gateway can be executed by an NVD, which can be a smartNIC, host, or other NVD implementation. The packet is then processed by the gateway and forwarded to the next hop that facilitates communication of the packet to its intended destination endpoint. For example, in Figure 2 In the embodiment depicted in , a packet originating from a compute instance 268 may be communicated from the host 202 to the NVD 210 via the link 220 (using the NIC 232). On the NVD 210, the VNIC 276 is invoked because it is the VNIC associated with the source compute instance 268. The VNIC 276 is configured to inspect the encapsulation information in the packet and determine a next hop for forwarding the packet in order to facilitate communication of the packet to its intended destination endpoint, and then forward the packet to the determined next hop.

[0126] Compute instances deployed on a VCN can communicate with a variety of different endpoints. These endpoints may include endpoints hosted by CSPI 200 and endpoints external to CSPI 200. Endpoints hosted by CSPI 200 may include instances in the same VCN or other VCNs, which may be a customer's VCN or a VCN that does not belong to the customer. Communications between endpoints hosted by CSPI 200 may be performed over physical network 218. Compute instances may also communicate with endpoints that are not hosted by CSPI 200 or that are external to CSPI 200. Examples of these endpoints include endpoints within a customer's on-premises network or data center, or public endpoints accessible over a public network such as the Internet. Communications with endpoints external to CSPI 200 may be performed over a public network (e.g., the Internet) using various communication protocols. Figure 2 not shown) or a private network ( Figure 2 (not shown) to execute.

[0127] Figure 2 The architecture of CSPI 200 depicted in FIG. 1 is merely an example and is not intended to be limiting. In alternative embodiments, variations, substitutions, and modifications are possible. For example, in some implementations, CSPI 200 may have more Figure 2 The systems or components shown in FIG. 5 may include more or fewer systems or components, may combine two or more systems, or may have different system configurations or arrangements. Figure 2 The systems, subsystems, and other components depicted in the present disclosure are implemented in software (e.g., code, instructions, programs) executed by one or more processing units (e.g., processors, cores) of the corresponding system, using hardware, or a combination thereof. The software may be stored on a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., a memory device).

[0128] Figure 4 Depicted is connectivity between a host and an NVD for providing I / O virtualization to support multi-tenancy in accordance with certain embodiments. Figure 4 As depicted in , host 402 executes a hypervisor 404 that provides a virtualized environment. Host 402 executes two virtual machine instances, VM1 406 belonging to customer / tenant #1 and VM2 408 belonging to customer / tenant #2. Host 402 includes a physical NIC 410 connected to NVD 412 via link 414. Each of the compute instances is attached to a VNIC executed by NVD 412. Figure 4 In the embodiment of FIG. 4 , VM1 406 is attached to VNIC-VM1 420 and VM2 408 is attached to VNIC-VM2 422 .

[0129] like Figure 4 As shown in FIG, NIC 410 includes two logical NICs, logical NIC A 416 and logical NIC B 418. Each virtual machine is attached to its own logical NIC and is configured to work with its own logical NIC. For example, VM1 406 is attached to logical NIC A 416, and VM2 408 is attached to logical NIC B 418. Although host 402 includes only one physical NIC 410 shared by multiple tenants, each tenant's virtual machines believe they have their own host and NICs because of the logical NICs.

[0130] In some embodiments, each logical NIC is assigned its own VLAN ID. Thus, a particular VLAN ID is assigned to logical NIC A 416 of Tenant #1, and a separate VLAN ID is assigned to logical NIC B 418 of Tenant #2. When a packet is communicated from VM1 406, a tag assigned to Tenant #1 is attached to the packet by the hypervisor, and the packet is then communicated from the host 402 to the NVD 412 via link 414. In a similar manner, when a packet is communicated from VM2 408, a tag assigned to Tenant #2 is attached to the packet by the hypervisor, and the packet is then communicated from the host 402 to the NVD 412 via link 414. Thus, a packet 424 communicated from the host 402 to the NVD 412 has an associated tag 426 that identifies a particular tenant and associated VM. On the NVD, for a packet 424 received from the host 402, a tag 426 associated with the packet is used to determine whether the packet is processed by VNIC-VM1 420 or VNIC-VM2 422. The packet is then processed by the corresponding VNIC. Figure 4 The configuration depicted in enables each tenant's compute instances to believe that they have their own host and NIC. Figure 4 The setup described in provides I / O virtualization for supporting multi-tenancy.

[0131] Figure 5 A simplified block diagram of a physical network 500 is depicted in accordance with certain embodiments. Figure 5 The embodiments depicted in are structured as Clos networks. A Clos network is a specific type of network topology that is designed to provide connection redundancy while maintaining high bisection bandwidth and maximum resource utilization. A Clos network is a non-blocking, multi-stage or multi-level switching network, where the number of stages or levels can be two, three, four, five, etc. Figure 5 The embodiment depicted in FIG. 5 is a 3-tier network including tiers 1, 2, and 3. TOR switch 504 represents a tier-0 switch in a Clos network. One or more NVDs are connected to the TOR switch. The tier-0 switch is also referred to as an edge device of the physical network. The tier-0 switch is connected to the tier-1 switch, also referred to as a leaf switch layer. Figure 5In the embodiment depicted in , a group of "n" layer-0 TOR switches are connected to a group of "n" layer-1 switches and together form a pod. Each layer-0 switch in the pod is interconnected with all layer-1 switches in the pod, but there is no switch connectivity between pods. In some implementations, two pods are referred to as blocks. Each block is served or connected to a group of "n" layer-2 switches (sometimes called backbone switches). There can be several blocks in the physical network topology. The layer-2 switches are in turn connected to "n" layer-3 switches (sometimes called super backbone switches). Packet communications on the physical network 500 are typically performed using one or more layer-3 communication protocols. Typically, all layers of the physical network, except the TOR layer, are n-way redundant, allowing high availability. Policies can be specified for pods and blocks to control the visibility of switches in the physical network to each other in order to enable expansion of the physical network.

[0132] A Clos network is characterized in that the maximum number of hops from one tier-0 switch to another tier-0 switch (or from an NVD connected to a tier-0 switch to another NVD connected to a tier-0 switch) is fixed. For example, in a 3-tier Clos network, a maximum of seven hops are required for a packet to reach from one NVD to another NVD, where the source NVD and the target NVD are connected to the leaf level of the Clos network. Similarly, in a 4-tier Clos network, a maximum of nine hops are required for a packet to reach from one NVD to another NVD, where the source NVD and the target NVD are connected to the leaf level of the Clos network. Therefore, the Clos network architecture maintains consistent latency throughout the network, which is important for communications within and between data centers. The Clos topology scales horizontally and is cost-effective. The bandwidth / throughput capacity of the network can be easily increased by adding more switches at various levels (e.g., more leaf and spine switches) and by increasing the number of links between switches at adjacent levels.

[0133] In some embodiments, each resource within the CSPI is assigned a unique identifier called a cloud identifier (CID). This identifier is included as part of the resource's information and can be used to manage the resource, such as via a console or through an API. An example syntax for a CID is:

[0134] ocid1.<RESOURCE TYPE> . <realm>.[REGION][.FUTURE USE].<UNIQUE ID>

[0135] in,

[0136] ocid1: a text string indicating the CID version;

[0137] resource type: the type of resource (for example, instance, volume, VCN, subnet, user, group, etc.);

[0138] realm: The realm in which the resource resides. Example values ​​are "c1" for the commercial realm, "c2" for the government cloud realm, or "c3" for the federal government cloud realm, etc. Each realm can have its own domain name;

[0139] region: The region where the resource is located. This part can be empty if the region does not apply to the resource;

[0140] future use: Reserved for future use.

[0141] unique ID: The unique part of the ID. The format can vary depending on the type of resource or service.

[0142] In a container environment (e.g., a container orchestration system such as Kubernetes), a pod is an abstraction that represents a group of one or more containers with shared resources, including namespaces, network resources (such as IP addresses), and storage components (such as storage volumes, file system volumes, etc.). The pod also includes instructions that detail how the container should run (these instructions include available ports, container image versions, etc.). The contents of a pod are always co-located and co-scheduled.

[0143] Current methods for performing pod communications require bridging and encapsulation. For example, when pods located on different nodes (also known as hosts) within a container environment wish to communicate with each other, such communications need to be encapsulated using a bridging device in order to route these communications between hosts using an overlay network. Therefore, due to encapsulation, these pods cannot be directly identified / distinguished in the flow logs. Performance penalties are also incurred because the performance of encapsulation requires additional processing resources to perform and requires encapsulation data to be added to the packets being transmitted.

[0144] The present disclosure provides a technology for implementing a container environment, wherein each cabin within the container environment is provided with a unique IP address and a virtual communication device, such as an IPvlan device. For example, an IPvlan device may include a Linux networking device. An IPvlan device may be created in a network namespace, and another device may be designated as the parent device of the IPvlan. Whenever a network request is sent to an IPvlan device, the parent device may act as a bridge / router and route the traffic to the appropriate location (the parent device knows all connected child IPvlan devices). Communications from a source cabin are routed directly to a destination cabin within a container environment using the unique IP address of the destination cabin via one or more virtualized network interface cards (VNICs) without the need for bridging and encapsulation. Each VNIC may include an interface device that a virtual machine uses to connect to a virtual cloud network.

[0145] In this way, the VNIC can utilize the IP address assigned to the cabin to route all traffic in and out of the cabin via the virtual communication device assigned to the cabin. This traffic then maintains the IP address associated with the cabin while still enabling rule implementation within the cabin. In addition, such traffic can be routed by the VNIC without going through encapsulation or passing through a bridging device.

[0146] This reduces the size of the data being transmitted (e.g., by eliminating the overhead required during encapsulation added to the transmitted network packets), and also reduces the amount of computation performed by the hardware implementing the container environment (e.g., by eliminating the computational cost necessary to perform data encapsulation during transmission). This also reduces data transmission latency within the container environment (e.g., by removing the need to perform encapsulation during data transmission), which improves the performance of the hardware implementing communication within the container environment.

[0147] Container orchestration systems such as Kubernetes provide software implementation and management. Kubernetes provides cloud providers with open-ended interfaces to define how pod communications should work (this includes pod-to-pod, pod-to-host, pod-to-internet, and pod-to-self). This "open interface" is called the Container Network Interface (CNI) and may include the Kubernetes specification for managing network resources on the cluster. This specification enables Kubernetes to interact with a wide range of CNI-based software solutions. CNI plugins allow Kubernetes clusters to integrate with specific network technologies and comply with the CNI specification. In addition, Kubernetes has the concept of a Kubernetes service, which is an abstract way to refer to a group of pods (for example, a service can be defined so that if a network request is sent to that service, the request will be rerouted to multiple predetermined Pods).

[0148] This disclosure describes techniques for defining how pod communications work within a Kubernetes environment and a virtual cloud network (VCN) in a friendly way. This includes communicating between pods and with the VCN in an efficient manner and ensuring that the path of network traffic can be easily traced.

[0149] In an exemplary solution, an IPvlan device and a point-to-point device (ptp) are provided for each pod. The ptp device is specifically used to talk to the node / host. For example, the ptp device may include a Linux networking device for connecting two network namespaces and allowing communication from the pod to the host. Otherwise, all other traffic goes through the IPvlan device. IPvlan can run in L3S mode, which means that host IPtables are processed. Iptables can include filtering software on the compute instance that performs network packet filtering and packet source / destination modification.

[0150] In some embodiments, the traffic flow of a pod can proceed as follows: a pod sends a network request to another pod. The network request originates from the IPvlan device of the sending pod. If necessary, the host iptables will translate the network packet (for example, if the request is for a Kubernetes service rather than a pod directly). After translating the packet, the traffic goes out the IPvlan parent device (for example, a VLAN assigned to the IPvlan device), which is routed to the next router, and the router will decide (1) to route the traffic back to the pod on the original host (also known as utilizing a "hairpin"), or (2) if the destination of the packet is another destination, the router will forward the traffic to that destination. The pod that sends the network response will perform a traffic flow similar to the above steps.

[0151] Figure 6 600 is a block diagram of a container environment 600 for facilitating direct pod-to-pod communication according to at least one embodiment. The exemplary container environment 600 shown may include a data plane of a container orchestration system (such as Kubernetes), wherein such a data plane implements workloads in response to instructions received from a separate control plane (not shown). As shown, the exemplary container environment 600 includes a first node 602 and a second node 604. Of course, a greater or lesser number of nodes may be included in other exemplary embodiments.

[0152] In addition, the first node 602 and the second node 604 may each include a virtual machine or a physical machine that includes one or more services necessary to implement one or more cabins. Each node (also referred to as a host) may include a physical machine or a virtual machine that hosts and runs a cabin in a Kubernetes cluster. In one example, the components on the node include Kubelet (an agent on each node to ensure that the container runs in the cabin), a container runtime, and kube-proxy (a network agent running on each node). As shown, the first node 602 implements the first cabin 606, the second cabin 608, and the third cabin 610, while the second node 604 implements the fourth cabin 612. Each cabin 606-612 includes corresponding containers 614-620, each of which includes one or more applications to be run and associated libraries and dependencies. Each cabin 606-612 also includes shared storage / network resources and specifications for how to run such containers 614-620.

[0153] In addition, each cabin 606-612 includes a corresponding virtual communication device 622-628, wherein each virtual communication device 622-628 is configured for its corresponding cabin 606-612. In one embodiment, each virtual communication device 622-628 may include an Internet Protocol virtual local area network (IPvlan) device. For example, each virtual communication device 622-628 can facilitate communication between its corresponding cabin 606-612 and other cabins within the container environment 600 and with a virtualized network interface card (VNIC) 638-642, an external network such as a virtual cloud network 644, etc. In addition, each cabin 606-612 is assigned a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is used to route data communications directly to the cabin via its corresponding virtual communication device 622-628 and one or more VNICs 638-642.

[0154] In addition, each virtual communication device 622-628 is assigned one of the VNICs 638-642 as a parent device. For example, the second VNIC 632 is assigned as the parent device of the virtual communication device 622 of the first pod 606, the fourth VNIC 636 is assigned as the parent device of the virtual communication device 624 of the second pod 608 and the virtual communication device 626 of the third pod 610, and the seventh VNIC 642 is assigned as the parent device of the virtual communication device 628 of the fourth pod 612. Each VNIC 638-642 stores the IP address of each pod 606-612 to which the VNIC 638-642 is assigned. Each pod 606-612 also includes a corresponding veth pair 646A-B-652A-B. Each veth pair 646A-B-652A-B includes a network connection that connects the container network within each pod 606-612 to the corresponding node network of each node 602-604. For example, a first veth pair 646A-652A may be used for egress traffic and a second veth pair 646B-652B may be used for ingress traffic.

[0155] In addition, a first VNIC 630, a second VNIC 632, a third VNIC 634, a fourth VNIC 636, and a fifth VNIC 638 are connected to the first node 602. A sixth VNIC 640 and a seventh VNIC 642 are connected to the second node 604. Each of these VNICs 630-642 can implement networking communication features for its corresponding nodes 602 and 604. In one embodiment, the first VNIC 630 can include a primary parent VNIC of the first node 602, while the second, third, fourth, and fifth VNICs 632-638 can include secondary parent VNICs of the first node 602. Similarly, the sixth VNIC 640 can include a primary parent VNIC of the second node 604, while the seventh VNIC 642 can include a secondary parent VNIC of the second node 604. The first / primary parent VNIC 630 of the first node 602 communicates with the sixth / primary parent VNIC 640 of the second node 604 , while the second through fifth / secondary parent VNICs 632 - 638 of the first node 602 communicate with the seventh / secondary parent VNIC 642 of the second node 604 .

[0156] As stated in this article, Figure 7-9 Various exemplary data flows within the above-described exemplary container environment 600 are illustrated.

[0157] More specifically, Figure 7 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 600. More specifically, the third compartment 610 and the second compartment 608 communicate via a connection with the fourth VNIC 636. When a container 618 located in the third compartment 610 sends a request for data addressed to the second compartment 608 (e.g., a request including the IP address of the second compartment 608), the request is first sent through the veth 650A-B of the third compartment 610 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the request. Then, the request is sent from the virtual communication device 626 of the third compartment 610 to the fourth VNIC 636.

[0158] When the request is received at the fourth VNIC 636, another hairpin operation is used to route the request through the fourth VNIC 636 so that information associated with the request is stored in one or more flow logs. This information may include a destination IP address (e.g., an IP address of the second cabin 608), a source IP address (e.g., an IP address of the third cabin 610), etc. After performing the hairpin operation, the fourth VNIC 636 routes the request to the virtual communication device 624 of the second cabin 608 using the IP address of the second cabin 608 included in the request. The request is then sent from the virtual communication device 624 of the second cabin 608 by the container 616 located in the second cabin 608 through the veth pair 648A-B of the second cabin 608, so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the request, and the request is received at the container 616 located in the second cabin 608.

[0159] also, Figure 8 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 600. For example, the third compartment 610 and the second compartment 608 communicate via a connection with the fourth VNIC 636. In response to receiving a request for data from a container 618 of the third compartment 610 at a container 616 located in the second compartment 608, the container 616 of the second compartment 608 generates a response to the request addressed to the third compartment 610 (which includes the IP address of the third compartment 610). This response is sent by the container 616 to the fourth VNIC 636 via the virtual communication device of the second compartment 608.

[0160] When a response is received at the fourth VNIC 636, another hairpin operation is used to route the response through the fourth VNIC 636 so that information associated with the response is stored in one or more flow logs. This information may include a destination IP address (e.g., an IP address of the third cabin 610), a source IP address (e.g., an IP address of the second cabin 608), etc. After performing the hairpin operation, the fourth VNIC 636 routes the response to the virtual communication device 626 of the third pod cabin using the IP address of the third cabin 610 included in the response. The response is then sent from the virtual communication device 626 of the third cabin 610 through the veth pair 650A-B of the third cabin 610 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the response and is received at the container 618 located in the third cabin 610.

[0161] also, Fig. 9 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 600 of an exemplary container environment 600. More specifically, a first pod 606 communicates via a connection with a second VNIC 632 of the first node 602, and a second pod 608 communicates via a connection with a fourth VNIC 636 of the first node 602. When a container 616 located in the second pod 608 sends a request for data addressed to the first pod 606 (e.g., a request including the IP address of the first pod 606), the request is first sent through the veth pair 648A-B of the second pod 608 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the request. Then, the request is sent from the virtual communication device 624 of the second pod 608 to the fourth VNIC 636.

[0162] When the request is received at the fourth VNIC 636, the request is routed to the second VNIC 632 using the IP address of the first pod 606 included in the request. Upon receiving the request at the second VNIC 632, the second VNIC 632 routes the request to the virtual communication device 622 of the first pod 606 using the IP address of the first pod 606 included in the request. The request is then sent from the virtual communication device 622 of the first pod 606 through the veth pair 646A-B of the first pod 606 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the request, and the request is received at the container 614 located within the first pod 606.

[0163] also, Fig.10 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 6. Block diagram of an exemplary response flow 1000 between two pods communicating via different VNICs within the same node 602 of an exemplary container environment 600 of FIG. 6. For example, a first pod 606 communicates via a connection with a second VNIC 632 of the first node 602, and a second pod 608 communicates via a connection with a fourth VNIC 636 of the first node 602. In response to receiving a request for data from a container 616 of the second pod 608 at a container 614 located within the first pod 608, the container 614 of the first pod 606 generates a response to the request addressed to the second pod 608 (which includes the IP address of the second pod 608). This response is sent by the container 614 to the second VNIC 632 via the virtual communication device 622 of the first pod 608.

[0164] When the response is received at the second VNIC 632, the response is routed to the fourth VNIC 636. After receiving the response at the fourth VNIC 636, the fourth VNIC 636 routes the request to the virtual communication device 624 of the second pod 608 using the IP address of the second pod 608 included in the response. The response is then sent from the virtual communication device 624 of the second pod 608 through the veth pair 648A-B of the second pod 608 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the response, and the response is received at the container 616 located within the second pod 608.

[0165] also, Fig.11 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary request flow 1100 between two pods communicating via different VNICs within different nodes of an exemplary container environment 600. More specifically, the third pod 610 communicates via a connection with the fourth VNIC 636 of the first node 602, and the fourth pod 612 communicates via a connection with the seventh VNIC 642 of the second node 604. When a container 618 located within the third pod 610 sends a request for data addressed to the fourth pod 612 (e.g., a request including the IP address of the fourth pod 612), the request is first sent through the veth pair 650A-B of the third pod so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the request. Then, the request is sent from the virtual communication device 626 of the third pod 610 to the fourth VNIC 636.

[0166] When the request is received at the fourth VNIC 636, the request is routed to the seventh VNIC 642. After receiving the request at the seventh VNIC 642, the seventh VNIC 642 routes the request to the virtual communication device 628 of the fourth cabin 612 using the IP address of the fourth cabin 612 included in the request. Then, using a hairpin operation, the request is sent from the virtual communication device 628 of the fourth cabin 612 through the veth pair 652A-B of the fourth cabin 612 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the request, and the request is received at the container 620 located in the first cabin 612.

[0167] also, Fig.12 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 10 is a block diagram of an exemplary response flow 1200 between two pods communicating via different VNICs within different nodes of an exemplary container environment 600. For example, the third pod 610 communicates via a connection with the fourth VNIC 636 of the first node 602, and the fourth pod 612 communicates via a connection with the seventh VNIC 642 of the second node 604. In response to receiving a request for data from a container 618 of the third pod 610 at a container 620 located within the fourth pod 612, the container 620 of the fourth pod 612 generates a response to the request addressed to the third pod 610 (which includes the IP address of the third pod 610). This response is sent by the container 620 to the seventh VNIC 642 via the virtual communication device 628 of the fourth pod 612.

[0168] When the response is received at the seventh VNIC 642, the response is routed to the fourth VNIC 636. After receiving the response at the fourth VNIC 636, the fourth VNIC 636 routes the request to the virtual communication device 626 of the third cabin 610 using the IP address of the third cabin 610 included in the response. The response is then sent from the virtual communication device 626 of the third cabin 610 through the veth pair 650A-B of the third cabin 610 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the response, and the response is received at the container 618 located within the third cabin 610.

[0169] also, Fig.13 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 1300 between a pod and a virtual cloud network (VCN) 644 within an exemplary container environment 600. When a container 614 located within a first pod 606 sends a request for data addressed to VCN 644 (e.g., a request including an IP address of VCN 644), the request is first sent through veth pair 646A-B of the first pod 606 using a hairpin operation so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the request. The request is then sent from the virtual communication device 622 of the first pod 606 to the second VNIC 632. When the request is received at the second VNIC 632, the request is routed to VCN 644 using the IP address of VCN 644. The request can then be directed to the appropriate destination within VCN 644.

[0170] also, Fig.14 is used to illustrate the Figure 6 600 and a virtual cloud network (VCN) 644. In response to receiving a request for data from a container 614 of a first pod 606 at the VCN 644, an entity within the VCN 644 generates a response to the request addressed to the first pod 606 (which includes the IP address of the first pod 606). This response is sent to the second VNIC 632 via the VCN 644.

[0171] When the response is received at the second VNIC 632, the response is routed to the virtual communication device 622 of the first pod 606 using the IP address of the first pod 606 included in the response. The response is then sent from the virtual communication device 622 of the first pod 606 through the veth pair 646A-B of the first pod 606 so that one or more third-party interfaces can perform one or more evaluation operations on the response and is received at the container 614 located within the first pod 606.

[0172] Fig.15 An example method 1500 for implementing communications within a container environment according to at least one embodiment is illustrated. The method 1500 may be performed by Figure 6 The computer readable storage medium includes computer readable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the computing device to perform method 1500. Method 1500 may be performed in any suitable order. It should be understood that method 1500 may include more than Fig.15 A greater number of steps or a lesser number of steps as shown in .

[0173] Method 1500 may start at 1502, where a first node is configured within a container environment, the first node comprising a first compartment. In some embodiments, the nodes within the container environment (including the first node) may each include a virtual machine or a physical machine that includes one or more services necessary to implement a compartment (such as the first compartment). In some embodiments, the first compartment may include operating system (OS) level virtualization. In some embodiments, the first node of the container environment may include a host configured within the container environment.

[0174] In addition, in some embodiments, the container environment includes a system for managing one or more cabins (e.g., a Kubernetes container orchestration system, etc.). In addition, in some embodiments, the first cabin may include one or more containers, each of which includes one or more applications to be run and associated libraries and dependencies. In addition, in some embodiments, multiple different cabins (including the first cabin) can be implemented within the first node. In addition, in some embodiments, each cabin within the first node can have its own namespace. In some embodiments, one or more cabins can be co-located within the first node. In addition, in some embodiments, each pod within the first node can be assigned a unique IP address.

[0175] At 1504, communications are configured from the first cabin via the first virtual communications device. In some embodiments, the first virtual communications device may include an Internet Protocol virtual local area network (IPvlan) device. In some embodiments, a virtual communications device may be configured for each cabin within each node of the container environment. In some embodiments, the virtual communications device may facilitate communications between its assigned cabin and other cabins within the container environment, as well as with virtualized network interface cards (VNICs), networks external to the container environment (e.g., virtual cloud networks (VCNs)), and the like. For example, the virtual communications device of the first cabin may communicate with the VNIC to send requests for data (and responses to requests for data) to destination cabins within the container environment, where such requests and responses are directed to the destination cabins using unique IP addresses assigned to those destination cabins.

[0176] At 1506, data from a first virtual communication device assigned to a first compartment within a first node is received at a first virtualized network interface card (VNIC) connected to the first node within a container environment, wherein the data is configured to be transmitted to a destination device. In some embodiments, the first VNIC may include a secondary parent device attached to the first node to implement networking functions within the first node and the container environment. In some embodiments, the data may include a request for additional data (e.g., from a second compartment within the first node, a second compartment within a second node separate from the first node, etc.).

[0177] In addition, in some embodiments, the data may include a response to a request received by the first cabin. In some embodiments, the data may include one or more network packets. In some embodiments, the data may be processed according to one or more rules (e.g., host rules) implemented by the first virtual communication device. In some embodiments, the data may be instantiated by a local host in the first cabin.

[0178] At 1508, data is routed by the first VNIC to a destination device, wherein the data includes at least an address identifying the first compartment. In some embodiments, the destination may include a second compartment that is different from the first compartment from which the request originated. For example, the first compartment and the second compartment may share a first VNIC within the first node. For example, both the first compartment and the second compartment may be assigned an IP address by the first VNIC.

[0179] Additionally, in some embodiments, data may be routed directly from the first VNIC to the second compartment. In some embodiments, the first VNIC may route data directly to the second compartment using a hairpin operation. For example, a hairpin operation may route data through the first VNIC such that transmission information is stored in one or more logs (e.g., flow logs, etc.). In another example, the hairpin may be performed using a vepa mode selected using a mode flag. In some embodiments, the first VNIC may route data directly to the second compartment using a bridging operation.

[0180] In addition, in some embodiments, the destination may include a second VNIC that is different from the first VNIC that performs the routing. For example, both the second VNIC and the first VNIC may be attached to a first node of the container environment. In another example, the second VNIC may be attached to a second node of the container environment that is different from the first node. In yet another example, the data may be routed directly from the first VNIC to the second VNIC.

[0181] In addition, in one example, the second VNIC can receive the data and route the data to a second compartment different from the first compartment. For example, the second VNIC can be assigned to the second compartment within its corresponding node. In this way, data can be sent directly between VNICs within the container environment without passing through a bridge and without undergoing data encapsulation.

[0182] In addition, in some embodiments, the destination may include a virtual cloud network (VCN). For example, data may be routed directly from the first VNIC to the VCN. In some embodiments, the address identifying the first cabin may include a first Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to the first cabin. For example, the first VNIC may assign the first IP address to the first virtual communication device of the first cabin from a free pool of IP addresses. In this way, the first IP address of the first virtual communication device may be recorded in one or more flow logs during data transmission.

[0183] In addition, in some embodiments, the data may also include a second Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to the recipient cabin. For example, the recipient cabin may include an intended recipient of the data. In another example, the recipient cabin may be located within a node, and a VNIC associated with the node may assign a second IP address to a second virtual communication device assigned to the recipient cabin within the node.

[0184] In addition, in some embodiments, data can be processed by a second communication device (e.g., a point-to-point device) assigned to the first pod before being sent by the first communication device to the first VNIC. For example, the second communication device can include a virtual Ethernet device (veth), such as one or more veth pairs, which connect a first network (e.g., a container network, etc.) to a second network (e.g., a host network, etc.). In another example, each of the one or more veth pairs can include a first portion that exists in a pod namespace of the pod environment, and a second portion that exists in a host namespace of the pod environment.

[0185] Furthermore, in one example, the first pod may direct data through the second communication device using a hairpin operation. In another example, the second communication device may enable a third-party container networking interface (such as Calico) to perform one or more evaluation operations.

[0186] In addition, in some embodiments, in response to receiving data at the second cabin, the data can be processed by a third communication device (e.g., a point-to-point device) assigned to the second cabin. For example, the third communication device may include a virtual Ethernet device (veth), such as one or more veth pairs, which connects a first network (e.g., a container network, etc.) to a second network (e.g., a host network, etc.). In another example, one or more veth pairs may include a first portion that exists in a cabin namespace of the container environment, and a second portion that exists in a host namespace of the container environment. In yet another example, the second cabin may utilize a hairpin operation to direct data through a third communication device. In one example, a hairpin operation may include a process of sending network traffic out of a network device with the intent that the network traffic will be rerouted back to the same network device. In this way, a third-party container networking interface (such as Calico) can perform one or more evaluation operations.

[0187] In addition, in some embodiments, the first VNIC may receive a response from the destination. For example, the data initially received / routed by the first VNIC may include a request for data. In another example, the first VNIC may receive a response to the request from the initial destination. For example, the response may include a first Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to the first cabin. In yet another example, the first VNIC may route the response to a first virtual communication device assigned to the first cabin within the first node.

[0188] In this way, the VNIC can utilize the address that identifies the first cabin to route all traffic in and out of the first cabin via the first virtual communication device (e.g., an IPvlan device). This can enable this traffic to maintain the IP address associated with the first cabin while still enabling rule implementation within the first node through the first virtual communication device. In addition, such traffic can be routed by the first VNIC without undergoing encapsulation or passing through a bridging device. This can reduce the size of the data being transmitted (e.g., by eliminating the required overhead during encapsulation added to the transmitted network packets), and can also reduce the amount of computation performed by the hardware that implements the container environment (e.g., by eliminating the computational cost necessary to perform data encapsulation during transmission). This can also reduce the latency of data transmission within the container environment (e.g., by removing the need to perform encapsulation during data transmission), which can improve the performance of the hardware that implements the container environment.

[0189] As mentioned above, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a specific type of cloud computing. IaaS can be configured to provide virtualized computing resources over a public network (e.g., the Internet). In the IaaS model, a cloud computing provider can host infrastructure components (e.g., servers, storage devices, network nodes (e.g., hardware), deployment software, platform virtualization (e.g., hypervisor layer), or the like). In some cases, IaaS providers can also supply a variety of services to accompany those infrastructure components (e.g., billing, monitoring, logging, load balancing, and clustering, etc.). Therefore, since these services can be policy-driven, IaaS users can be able to implement policies to drive load balancing to maintain application availability and performance.

[0190] In some cases, IaaS customers can access resources and services over a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet, and can use the cloud provider's services to install the remaining elements of the application stack. For example, a user can log in to the IaaS platform to create a virtual machine (VM), install an operating system (OS) on each VM, deploy middleware such as a database, create storage buckets for workloads and backups, and even install enterprise software into the VM. The customer can then use the provider's services to perform a variety of functions, including balancing network traffic, troubleshooting application problems, monitoring performance, managing disaster recovery, etc.

[0191] In most cases, the cloud computing model will require the involvement of a cloud provider. However, a cloud provider is not necessarily a third-party service that specializes in providing (e.g., supplying, renting, selling) IaaS. An entity may also choose to deploy a private cloud and become its own infrastructure service provider.

[0192] In some examples, IaaS deployment is the process of putting a new application or a new version of an application onto a prepared application server or the like. It may also include the process of preparing the server (e.g., installing libraries, daemons, etc.). This is typically managed by the cloud provider below the hypervisor layer (e.g., servers, storage, network hardware, and virtualization). Thus, the customer may be responsible for handling (OS), middleware, and / or application deployment (e.g., on a self-service virtual machine (e.g., which can be spun up on demand) or the like).

[0193] In some examples, IaaS provisioning can refer to obtaining a computer or virtual host for use, and even installing required libraries or services on it. In most cases, deployment does not include provisioning, and provisioning may need to be performed first.

[0194] In some cases, there are two distinct challenges with IaaS provisioning. First, there is the initial challenge of provisioning an initial set of infrastructure before running anything. Second, after everything has been provisioned, there is the challenge of evolving the existing infrastructure (e.g., adding new services, changing services, removing services, etc.). In some cases, both of these challenges can be addressed by enabling the configuration of the infrastructure to be defined declaratively. In other words, the infrastructure (e.g., what components are required and how they interact) can be defined by one or more configuration files. Thus, the overall topology of the infrastructure (e.g., which resources depend on which resources and how each of them works together) can be described declaratively. In some cases, after the topology is defined, workflows can be generated to create and / or manage the different components described in the configuration files.

[0195] In some examples, the infrastructure can have many interconnected elements. For example, there can be one or more virtual private clouds (VPCs) (e.g., a potential on-demand pool of configurable and / or shared computing resources), also referred to as a core network. In some examples, there can also be one or more inbound / outbound traffic group rules and one or more virtual machines (VMs) provided to define how inbound and / or outbound traffic for the network will be established. Other infrastructure elements, such as load balancers, databases, or the like, can also be provided. As more and more infrastructure elements are desired and / or added, the infrastructure can evolve gradually.

[0196] In some cases, continuous deployment techniques can be employed to enable deployment of infrastructure code across various virtual computing environments. In addition, the described techniques can enable infrastructure management within these environments. In some examples, a service team can write code that is expected to be deployed to one or more (but typically multiple) different production environments (e.g., across various different geographic locations, sometimes even across the world). However, in some examples, the infrastructure on which the code will be deployed must first be established. In some cases, provisioning can be done manually, provisioning tools can be utilized to provision resources, and / or when the infrastructure is provisioned, deployment tools can be utilized to deploy the code.

[0197] Fig.16 16 is a block diagram 1600 illustrating an example schema of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1602 can be communicatively coupled to a secure host lease 1604 that can include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1606 and a secure host subnet 1608. In some examples, the service operator 1602 can use one or more client computing devices, which can be portable handheld devices (e.g., Cellular phone, computing tablets, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or wearable devices (e.g., Google head mounted display), running software (such as Microsoft Windows ) and / or a variety of mobile operating systems (such as iOS, Windows Phone, Android, BlackBerry8, Palm OS, etc.), and enable Internet, email, short message service (SMS), or other communication protocols. Alternatively, the client computing device may be a general-purpose personal computer, including, for example, running various versions of Microsoft Apple The client computing device can be a personal computer and / or laptop computer running any of a variety of commercial or a workstation computer running a UNIX-like operating system (including, but not limited to, various GNU / Linux operating systems, such as, for example, Google Chrome OS). Alternatively or in addition, the client computing device may be any other electronic device capable of communicating over a network that can access VCN 1606 and / or the Internet, such as a thin client computer, an Internet-enabled gaming system (e.g., with or without a VCN 1606 or a server), or a computer that can access the VCN 1606 and / or the Internet. gesture input device for a Microsoft Xbox gaming console), and / or a personal messaging device.

[0198] VCN 1606 may include a local peer gateway (LPG) 1610, which may be communicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 1612 via LPG 1610 contained in SSH VCN 1612. SSH VCN 1612 may include an SSH subnet 1614, and SSH VCN 1612 may be communicatively coupled to a control plane VCN 1616 via LPG 1610 contained in control plane VCN 1616. Also, SSH VCN 1612 may be communicatively coupled to a data plane VCN 1618 via LPG 1610. Control plane VCN 1616 and data plane VCN 1618 may be contained in a service lease 1619, which may be owned and / or operated by an IaaS provider.

[0199] The control plane VCN 1616 may include a control plane demilitarized zone (DMZ) layer 1620, which acts as a perimeter network (e.g., the portion of a company network between a company intranet and an external network). DMZ-based servers may have limited liability and help keep breaches contained. In addition, the DMZ layer 1620 may include one or more load balancer (LB) subnets 1622, a control plane application layer 1624 that may include (one or more) application subnets 1626, and a control plane data layer 1628 that may include (one or more) database (DB) subnets 1630 (e.g., (one or more) front-end DB subnets and / or (one or more) back-end DB subnets). The LB subnet(s) 1622 included in the control plane DMZ layer 1620 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1626 included in the control plane application layer 1624 and the internet gateway 1634 that may be included in the control plane VCN 1616, and the application subnet(s) 1626 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1630 included in the control plane data layer 1628 and the service gateway 1636 and the network address translation (NAT) gateway 1638. The control plane VCN 1616 may include the service gateway 1636 and the NAT gateway 1638.

[0200] The control plane VCN 1616 may include a data plane mirror application layer 1640, which may include application subnet(s) 1626. The application subnet(s) 1626 contained in the data plane mirror application layer 1640 may include a virtual network interface controller (VNIC) 1642, which may execute a compute instance 1644. The compute instance 1644 may communicatively couple the application subnet(s) 1626 of the data plane mirror application layer 1640 to the application subnet(s) 1626 that may be contained in the data plane application layer 1646.

[0201] The data plane VCN 1618 may include a data plane application layer 1646, a data plane DMZ layer 1648, and a data plane data layer 1650. The data plane DMZ layer 1648 may include a LB subnet(s) 1622 that may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1626 of the data plane application layer 1646 and the internet gateway 1634 of the data plane VCN 1618. The application subnet(s) 1626 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1636 of the data plane VCN 1618 and the NAT gateway 1638 of the data plane VCN 1618. The data plane data layer 1650 may also include a DB subnet(s) 1630 that may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1626 of the data plane application layer 1646.

[0202] The internet gateway 1634 of the control plane VCN 1616 and the data plane VCN 1618 may be communicatively coupled to the metadata management service 1652, which may be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1654. The public Internet 1654 may be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway 1638 of the control plane VCN 1616 and the data plane VCN 1618. The service gateway 1636 of the control plane VCN 1616 and the data plane VCN 1618 may be communicatively coupled to the cloud services 1656.

[0203] In some examples, service gateway 1636 of control plane VCN 1616 or data plane VCN 1618 can make application programming interface (API) calls to cloud services 1656 without traversing public Internet 1654. API calls from service gateway 1636 to cloud services 1656 can be one-way: service gateway 1636 can make API calls to cloud services 1656, and cloud services 1656 can send requested data to service gateway 1636. However, cloud services 1656 may not initiate API calls to service gateway 1636.

[0204] In some examples, secure host lease 1604 can be directly connected to service lease 1619, which would otherwise be isolated. Secure host subnet 1608 can communicate with SSH subnet 1614 through LPG 1610, which can enable two-way communication through otherwise isolated systems. Connecting secure host subnet 1608 to SSH subnet 1614 can give secure host subnet 1608 access to other entities within service lease 1619.

[0205] The control plane VCN 1616 may allow users of the service lease 1619 to establish or otherwise provision desired resources. The desired resources provisioned in the control plane VCN 1616 may be deployed or otherwise used in the data plane VCN 1618. In some examples, the control plane VCN 1616 may be isolated from the data plane VCN 1618, and the data plane mirror application layer 1640 of the control plane VCN 1616 may communicate with the data plane application layer 1646 of the data plane VCN 1618 via a VNIC 1642 that may be included in the data plane mirror application layer 1640 and the data plane application layer 1646.

[0206] In some examples, a user or customer of the system may make a request (e.g., a create, read, update, or delete (CRUD) operation) over the public internet 1654, which may communicate the request to the metadata management service 1652. The metadata management service 1652 may communicate the request to the control plane VCN 1616 through the internet gateway 1634. The request may be received by the LB subnet(s) 1622 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1620. The LB subnet(s) 1622 may determine that the request is valid, and in response to this determination, the LB subnet(s) 1622 may communicate the request to the application subnet(s) 1626 contained in the control plane application layer 1624. If the request is validated and a call to the public internet 1654 is required, the call to the public internet 1654 may be communicated to the NAT gateway 1638, which may make the call to the public internet 1654. The metadata that the request may desire to be stored may be stored in the DB subnet(s) 1630.

[0207] In some examples, data plane mirror application layer 1640 may facilitate direct communication between control plane VCN 1616 and data plane VCN 1618. For example, it may be desirable to apply changes, updates, or other appropriate modifications to a configuration to resources contained in data plane VCN 1618. Control plane VCN 1616 may communicate directly with resources contained in data plane VCN 1618 via VNIC 1642 and may thereby perform changes, updates, or other appropriate modifications to the configuration of resources contained in data plane VCN 1618.

[0208] In some embodiments, the control plane VCN 1616 and the data plane VCN 1618 may be included in the service lease 1619. In this case, the user or customer of the system may not own or operate the control plane 1616 or the data plane VCN 1618. Instead, the IaaS provider may own or operate the control plane VCN 1616 and the data plane VCN 1618, both of which may be included in the service lease 1619. This embodiment may enable network isolation that may prevent users or customers from interacting with other users' or other customers' resources. In addition, this embodiment may allow users or customers of the system to store databases privately without relying on the public Internet 1654, which may not have the desired level of threat prevention.

[0209] In other embodiments, the LB subnet(s) 1622 contained in the control plane VCN 1616 can be configured to receive signals from the service gateway 1636. In this embodiment, the control plane VCN 1616 and the data plane VCN 1618 can be configured to be called by customers of the IaaS provider without calling the public Internet 1654. Customers of the IaaS provider may desire this embodiment because the database(s) used by the customer can be controlled by the IaaS provider and can be stored on a service lease 1619 that can be isolated from the public Internet 1654.

[0210] Fig.17 1700 is a block diagram illustrating another example model of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1702 (e.g., Fig.16 The service operator 1602) can be communicatively coupled to the secure host lease 1704 (e.g., Fig.16 secure host lease 1604), which may include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1706 (e.g., Fig.16 VCN 1606) and secure host subnet 1708 (e.g., Fig.16 The VCN 1706 may include a local peer gateway (LPG) 1710 (e.g., Fig.16 1610), which may be communicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 1712 via an LPG 1610 contained in an SSH VCN 1712 (e.g., Fig.16 SSH VCN 1712 may include SSH subnet 1714 (e.g., Fig.16 SSH subnet 1614 of the control plane VCN 1716), and SSH VCN 1712 can be communicatively coupled to control plane VCN 1716 via LPG 1710 contained in control plane VCN 1716 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane VCN 1616 may be included in a service lease 1719 (e.g., Fig.16 service lease 1619), and the data plane VCN 1718 (e.g., Fig.16 The data plane VCN 1618) can be contained in a customer lease 1721 which can be owned or operated by a user or customer of the system.

[0211] The control plane VCN 1716 may include (one or more) LB subnets 1722 (e.g., Fig.16 LB subnet(s) 1622) of the control plane DMZ layer 1720 (e.g., Fig.16 control plane DMZ layer 1620), may include (one or more) application subnets 1726 (e.g., Fig.16 (one or more) application subnets 1626) of the control plane application layer 1724 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane application layer 1624 of the present invention may include (one or more) database (DB) subnets 1730 (e.g., similar to Fig.16 (one or more) DB subnets 1630) of the control plane data layer 1728 (e.g., Fig.16 1728). The LB subnet(s) 1722 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1720 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1726 contained in the control plane application layer 1724 and the internet gateway 1734 (e.g., Fig.16 1634), and the application subnet(s) 1726 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1730 and service gateway 1736 (e.g., Fig.16 service gateway 1636) and a network address translation (NAT) gateway 1738 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane VCN 1716 may include a service gateway 1736 and a NAT gateway 1738.

[0212] The control plane VCN 1716 may include a data plane mirror application layer 1740 (e.g., Fig.16 The data plane image application layer 1640 may include (one or more) application subnets 1726. The (one or more) application subnets 1726 included in the data plane image application layer 1740 may include a computing instance 1744 (e.g., similar to Fig.16 The compute instance 1744 can facilitate the application subnet(s) 1726 of the data plane mirroring application layer 1740 and can include the application subnets 1726 of the data plane mirroring application layer 1746 (e.g., Fig.16 Communication between (one or more) application subnets 1726 in the data plane application layer 1646) via VNIC 1742 contained in the data plane mirror application layer 1740 and VNIC 1742 contained in the data plane application layer 1746.

[0213] The Internet gateway 1734 included in the control plane VCN 1716 can be communicatively coupled to the metadata management service 1752 (e.g., Fig.16 1652), which can be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1754 (e.g., Fig.16 The public Internet 1754 can be communicatively coupled to a NAT gateway 1738 included in the control plane VCN 1716. The service gateway 1736 included in the control plane VCN 1716 can be communicatively coupled to cloud services 1756 (e.g., Fig.16 Cloud service 1656).

[0214] In some examples, the data plane VCN 1718 may be contained in a customer lease 1721. In this case, the IaaS provider may provide a control plane VCN 1716 for each customer, and the IaaS provider may establish a unique compute instance 1744 contained in a service lease 1719 for each customer. Each compute instance 1744 may allow communication between the control plane VCN 1716 contained in the service lease 1719 and the data plane VCN 1718 contained in the customer lease 1721. The compute instance 1744 may allow resources provisioned in the control plane VCN 1716 contained in the service lease 1719 to be deployed or otherwise used in the data plane VCN 1718 contained in the customer lease 1721.

[0215] In other examples, a customer of the IaaS provider may own a database that exists in the customer tenancy 1721. In this example, the control plane VCN 1716 may include a data plane mirror application layer 1740, which may include (one or more) application subnets 1726. The data plane mirror application layer 1740 may reside in the data plane VCN 1718, but the data plane mirror application layer 1740 may not exist in the data plane VCN 1718. That is, the data plane mirror application layer 1740 may have access to the customer tenancy 1721, but the data plane mirror application layer 1740 may not exist in the data plane VCN 1718 or be owned or operated by the customer of the IaaS provider. The data plane mirror application layer 1740 may be configured to make calls to the data plane VCN 1718, but may not be configured to make calls to any entity contained in the control plane VCN 1716. A customer may desire to deploy or otherwise use resources provisioned in control plane VCN 1716 in data plane VCN 1718, and data plane mirror application layer 1740 may facilitate the customer's desired deployment or other use of the resources.

[0216] In some embodiments, a customer of an IaaS provider may apply filters to the data plane VCN 1718. In this embodiment, the customer may determine what the data plane VCN 1718 may access, and the customer may restrict access to the public Internet 1754 from the data plane VCN 1718. The IaaS provider may not apply filters or otherwise control access to any external network or database by the data plane VCN 1718. The customer applies filters and controls to the data plane VCN 1718 contained in the customer lease 1721, which can help isolate the data plane VCN 1718 from other customers and from the public Internet 1754.

[0217] In some embodiments, cloud services 1756 may be called by service gateway 1736 to access services that may not exist on the public Internet 1754, on control plane VCN 1716, or on data plane VCN 1718. The connection between cloud services 1756 and control plane VCN 1716 or data plane VCN 1718 may not be active or continuous. Cloud services 1756 may exist on different networks owned or operated by IaaS providers. Cloud services 1756 may be configured to receive calls from service gateway 1736 and may be configured not to receive calls from the public Internet 1754. Some cloud services 1756 may be isolated from other cloud services 1756, and control plane VCN 1716 may be isolated from cloud services 1756 that may not be in the same region as control plane VCN 1716. For example, control plane VCN 1716 may be located in "region 1", while cloud service "deployment 16" may be located in region 1 and "region 2". If the call to deployment 16 is made by a service gateway 1736 contained in a control plane VCN 1716 located in region 1, the call may be transmitted to deployment 16 in region 1. In this example, control plane VCN 1716 or deployment 16 in region 1 may not be communicatively coupled to deployment 16 in region 2, or may otherwise be in communication with deployment 16 in region 2.

[0218] Fig.18 1800 is a block diagram illustrating another example model of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1802 (e.g., Fig.16 The service operator 1602) can be communicatively coupled to the secure host lease 1804 (e.g., Fig.16 The secure host lease 1604 may include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1806 (e.g., Fig.16 VCN 1606) and secure host subnet 1808 (e.g., Fig.16 VCN 1806 may include LPG 1810 (e.g., Fig.16 1610), which may be communicatively coupled to the SSH VCN 1812 via the LPG 1810 contained in the SSH VCN 1812 (e.g., Fig.16 SSH VCN 1812). SSH VCN 1812 may include SSH subnet 1814 (e.g., Fig.16 SSH subnet 1614 of the control plane VCN 1816), and SSH VCN 1812 can be communicatively coupled to control plane VCN 1816 via LPG 1810 contained in control plane VCN 1816 (e.g., Fig.16 1616) and is communicatively coupled to the data plane VCN 1818 via the LPG 1810 included in the data plane VCN 1818 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane VCN 1816 and the data plane VCN 1818 may be included in a service lease 1819 (e.g., Fig.16 Service lease 1619).

[0219] The control plane VCN 1816 may include a load balancer (LB) subnet 1822 (e.g., Fig.16 LB subnet(s) 1622) of the control plane DMZ layer 1820 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane DMZ layer 1620 may include (one or more) application subnets 1826 (e.g., similar to Fig.16 (one or more) application subnets 1626) of the control plane application layer 1824 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane application layer 1624 of the embodiment of the present invention may include a control plane data layer 1828 of (one or more) DB subnets 1830 (e.g., Fig.16 1828). The LB subnet(s) 1822 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1820 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1826 contained in the control plane application layer 1824 and to the internet gateway 1834 (e.g., Fig.16 1634), and the application subnet(s) 1826 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1830 contained in the control plane data layer 1828 and to the service gateway 1836 (e.g., Fig.16 ) and a network address translation (NAT) gateway 1838 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane VCN 1816 may include a service gateway 1836 and a NAT gateway 1838.

[0220] The data plane VCN 1818 may include a data plane application layer 1846 (e.g., Fig.16 Data plane application layer 1646), data plane DMZ layer 1848 (e.g., Fig.16 Data plane DMZ layer 1648), and data plane data layer 1850 (e.g., Fig.16 The data plane DMZ layer 1848 may include (one or more) LB subnets 1822, which may be communicatively coupled to the (one or more) trusted application subnets 1860 and (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1862 of the data plane application layer 1846 and the Internet gateway 1834 contained in the data plane VCN 1818. The (one or more) trusted application subnets 1860 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1836 contained in the data plane VCN 1818, the NAT gateway 1838 contained in the data plane VCN 1818, and the (one or more) DB subnets 1830 contained in the data plane data layer 1850. The (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1862 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1836 contained in the data plane VCN 1818 and the (one or more) DB subnets 1830 contained in the data plane data layer 1850. The data plane data layer 1850 may include (one or more) DB subnets 1830, which may be communicatively coupled to a service gateway 1836 included in the data plane VCN 1818.

[0221] Untrusted application subnet(s) 1862 may include one or more primary VNICs 1864(1)-(N) that may be communicatively coupled to tenant virtual machines (VMs) 1866(1)-(N). Each tenant VM 1866(1)-(N) may be communicatively coupled to a respective application subnet 1867(1)-(N) that may be contained in a respective container egress VCN 1868(1)-(N), which may be contained in a respective customer tenancy 1870(1)-(N). Respective secondary VNICs 1872(1)-(N) may facilitate communications between untrusted application subnet(s) 1862 contained in data plane VCN 1818 and application subnets contained in container egress VCNs 1868(1)-(N). Each container egress VCN 1868(1)-(N) may include a NAT gateway 1838 that may be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1854 (e.g., Fig.16 public Internet 1654).

[0222] The Internet gateway 1834 included in the control plane VCN 1816 and included in the data plane VCN 1818 can be communicatively coupled to the metadata management service 1852 (e.g., Fig.16 The metadata management service 1852 may be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1854. The public Internet 1854 may be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway 1838 included in the control plane VCN 1816 and included in the data plane VCN 1818. The service gateway 1836 included in the control plane VCN 1816 and included in the data plane VCN 1818 may be communicatively coupled to the cloud service 1856.

[0223] In some embodiments, data plane VCN 1818 can be integrated with customer lease 1870. In some cases, this integration can be useful or desirable for customers of the IaaS provider, such as where support may be desired when executing code. A customer may provide code to run that may be destructive, may communicate with other customer resources, or may otherwise cause adverse effects. In response to this, the IaaS provider can determine whether to run the code given to the IaaS provider by the customer.

[0224] In some examples, a customer of an IaaS provider may grant temporary network access to the IaaS provider and request functionality to be attached to a data plane layer application 1846. Code running the functionality may be executed in a VM 1866(1)-(N), and the code may not be configured to run anywhere else on the data plane VCN 1818. Each VM 1866(1)-(N) may be connected to one customer tenancy 1870. The corresponding container 1871(1)-(N) contained in the VM 1866(1)-(N) may be configured to run the code. In this case, there can be double isolation (e.g., containers 1871(1)-(N) running code, where containers 1871(1)-(N) can be contained at least in VMs 1866(1)-(N) contained in (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1862), which can help prevent incorrect or otherwise undesirable code from damaging the IaaS provider's network or damaging a different customer's network. Containers 1871(1)-(N) can be communicatively coupled to customer lease 1870 and can be configured to send or receive data from customer lease 1870. Containers 1871(1)-(N) can not be configured to send or receive data from any other entity in data plane VCN 1818. After running the code is complete, the IaaS provider can terminate or otherwise dispose of containers 1871(1)-(N).

[0225] In some embodiments, the trusted application subnet(s) 1860 may run code owned or operated by the IaaS provider. In this embodiment, the trusted application subnet(s) 1860 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1830 and configured to perform CRUD operations in the DB subnet(s) 1830. The untrusted application subnet(s) 1862 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1830, but in this embodiment, the untrusted application subnet(s) may be configured to perform read operations in the DB subnet(s) 1830. The containers 1871(1)-(N) that may be included in each customer's VM 1866(1)-(N) and that may run code from the customer may not be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1830.

[0226] In other embodiments, the control plane VCN 1816 and the data plane VCN 1818 may not be directly communicatively coupled. In this embodiment, there may be no direct communication between the control plane VCN 1816 and the data plane VCN 1818. However, communication may occur indirectly through at least one method. The LPG 1810 may be established by an IaaS provider, which may facilitate communication between the control plane VCN 1816 and the data plane VCN 1818. In another example, the control plane VCN 1816 or the data plane VCN 1818 may make a call to the cloud service 1856 via the service gateway 1836. For example, the call from the control plane VCN 1816 to the cloud service 1856 may include a request for a service that may communicate with the data plane VCN 1818.

[0227] Fig.19 1900 is a block diagram illustrating another example model of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1902 (e.g., Fig.16 The service operator 1602) can be communicatively coupled to the secure host lease 1904 (e.g., Fig.16 The secure host lease 1604 may include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1906 (e.g., Fig.16 VCN 1606) and secure host subnet 1908 (e.g., Fig.16 VCN 1906 may include LPG 1910 (e.g., Fig.16 1610), which may be communicatively coupled to the SSH VCN 1912 via the LPG 1910 contained in the SSH VCN 1912 (e.g., Fig.16 SSH VCN 1912). SSH VCN 1912 may include SSH subnet 1914 (e.g., Fig.16 SSH subnet 1614 of the control plane VCN 1916), and SSH VCN 1912 can be communicatively coupled to control plane VCN 1916 via LPG 1910 contained in control plane VCN 1916 (e.g., Fig.16 1916) and is communicatively coupled to the data plane VCN 1918 via the LPG 1910 contained in the data plane VCN 1918 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane VCN 1916 and the data plane VCN 1918 may be included in a service lease 1919 (e.g., Fig.16 Service lease 1619).

[0228] The control plane VCN 1916 may include (one or more) LB subnets 1922 (e.g., Fig.16 (one or more) LB subnets 1622))) of the control plane DMZ layer 1920 (e.g., Fig.16 The control plane DMZ layer 1620 may include (one or more) application subnets 1926 (e.g., Fig.16 (one or more) application subnets 1626) of the control plane application layer 1924 (e.g., Fig.16 control plane application layer 1624), may include (one or more) DB subnets 1930 (e.g., Fig.18 (one or more) DB subnets 1830) of the control plane data layer 1928 (e.g., Fig.16 1928). The LB subnet(s) 1922 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1920 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1926 contained in the control plane application layer 1924 and the internet gateway 1934 (e.g., Fig.16 1924 ), and the application subnet(s) 1926 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1930 and the service gateway 1936 (e.g., Fig.16 ) and a network address translation (NAT) gateway 1938 (e.g., Fig.16 NAT gateway 1638). The control plane VCN 1916 may include a service gateway 1936 and a NAT gateway 1938.

[0229] The data plane VCN 1918 may include a data plane application layer 1946 (e.g., Fig.16 Data plane application layer 1646), data plane DMZ layer 1948 (e.g., Fig.16 Data plane DMZ layer 1648), and data plane data layer 1950 (e.g., Fig.16 The data plane DMZ layer 1948 may include (one or more) LB subnets 1922, which may be communicatively coupled to (one or more) trusted application subnets 1960 (e.g., Fig.18 (one or more) trusted application subnets 1860) and (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1962 (e.g., Fig.18 The trusted application subnet(s) 1960 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1936 contained in the data plane VCN 1918, the NAT gateway 1938 contained in the data plane VCN 1918, and the DB subnet(s) 1930 contained in the data plane data layer 1950. The untrusted application subnet(s) 1962 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1936 contained in the data plane VCN 1918 and the DB subnet(s) 1930 contained in the data plane data layer 1950. The data plane data layer 1950 may include the DB subnet(s) 1930 that may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1936 contained in the data plane VCN 1918.

[0230] The untrusted application subnet(s) 1962 may include primary VNICs 1964(1)-(N) that may be communicatively coupled to tenant virtual machines (VMs) 1966(1)-(N) residing within the untrusted application subnet(s) 1962. Each tenant VM 1966(1)-(N) may run code in a respective container 1967(1)-(N) and may be communicatively coupled to an application subnet 1926 that may be contained in a data plane application layer 1946 that may be contained in a container egress VCN 1968. Corresponding secondary VNICs 1972(1)-(N) may facilitate communications between the untrusted application subnet(s) 1962 contained in the data plane VCN 1918 and the application subnets contained in the container egress VCN 1968. The container egress VCN may include a NAT gateway 1938 that may be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1954 (e.g., Fig.16 public Internet 1654).

[0231] The Internet gateway 1934 included in the control plane VCN 1916 and included in the data plane VCN 1918 can be communicatively coupled to the metadata management service 1952 (e.g., Fig.16 The metadata management service 1952 can be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1954. The public Internet 1954 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway 1938 included in the control plane VCN 1916 and included in the data plane VCN 1918. The service gateway 1936 included in the control plane VCN 1916 and included in the data plane VCN 1918 can be communicatively coupled to the cloud service 1956.

[0232] In some examples, the Fig.19 The architectural diagram of block diagram 1900 may be viewed as Fig.18 1800 , and may be desired by customers of the IaaS provider if the IaaS provider cannot communicate directly with the customer (e.g., a disconnected region). The corresponding container 1967(1)-(N) contained in each customer's VM 1966(1)-(N) is accessible to the customer in real time. The container 1967(1)-(N) can be configured to make calls to the corresponding secondary VNIC 1972(1)-(N) contained in the (one or more) application subnets 1926 of the data plane application layer 1946, which can be contained in the container egress VCN 1968. The secondary VNIC 1972(1)-(N) can transmit the call to the NAT gateway 1938, which can transmit the call to the public Internet 1954. In this example, containers 1967(1)-(N), which may be accessed by customers in real time, may be isolated from control plane VCN 1916 and may be isolated from other entities contained in data plane VCN 1918. Containers 1967(1)-(N) may also be isolated from resources from other customers.

[0233] In other examples, a customer may use containers 1967(1)-(N) to call cloud services 1956. In this example, a customer may run code in containers 1967(1)-(N) that requests a service from cloud services 1956. Containers 1967(1)-(N) may transmit this request to secondary VNICs 1972(1)-(N), which may transmit the request to a NAT gateway, which may transmit the request to the public Internet 1954. The public Internet 1954 may transmit the request to LB subnet(s) 1922 contained in control plane VCN 1916 via Internet gateway 1934. In response to determining that the request is valid, the LB subnet(s) may transmit the request to application subnet(s) 1926, which may transmit the request to cloud services 1956 via service gateway 1936.

[0234] It should be understood that the IaaS architectures 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900 depicted in the figures may have other components in addition to those depicted. In addition, the embodiments shown in the figures are only some examples of cloud infrastructure systems that can be combined with embodiments of the present disclosure. In some other embodiments, the IaaS system may have more or fewer components than shown in the figures, may combine two or more components, or may have a different configuration or arrangement of components.

[0235] In some embodiments, the IaaS system described herein may include a set of application, middleware, and database service offerings delivered to customers in a self-service, subscription-based, elastically scalable, reliable, highly available, and secure manner. An example of such an IaaS system is Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) provided by the applicant.

[0236] Fig. 20 An example computer system 2000 in which various embodiments may be implemented is illustrated. System 2000 may be used to implement any of the computer systems described above. As shown, computer system 2000 includes a processing unit 2004 that communicates with a plurality of peripheral subsystems via a bus subsystem 2002. These peripheral subsystems may include a processing acceleration unit 2006, an I / O subsystem 2008, a storage subsystem 2018, and a communication subsystem 2024. Storage subsystem 2018 includes a tangible computer-readable storage medium 2022 and a system memory 2010.

[0237] The bus subsystem 2002 provides a mechanism for allowing the various components and subsystems of the computer system 2000 to communicate with each other as expected. Although the bus subsystem 2002 is schematically shown as a single bus, the alternative embodiment of the bus subsystem can utilize multiple buses. The bus subsystem 2002 can be any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or a memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. For example, such an architecture can include an industry standard architecture (ISA) bus, a microchannel architecture (MCA) bus, an enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, a video electronics standard association (VESA) local bus, and a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus that can be implemented as a mezzanine bus manufactured according to the IEEE P1386.1 standard.

[0238] The processing unit 2004, which may be implemented as one or more integrated circuits (e.g., conventional microprocessors or microcontrollers), controls the operation of the computer system 2000. One or more processors may be included in the processing unit 2004. These processors may include single-core or multi-core processors. In certain embodiments, the processing unit 2004 may be implemented as one or more independent processing units 2032 and / or 2034, each of which includes a single-core or multi-core processor. In other embodiments, the processing unit 2004 may also be implemented as a quad-core processing unit formed by integrating two dual-core processors into a single chip.

[0239] In various embodiments, the processing unit 2004 can execute a variety of programs in response to program code and can maintain multiple concurrently executed programs or processes. At any given time, some or all of the program code to be executed may reside in (one or more) processors 2004 and / or storage subsystem 2018. Through appropriate programming, (one or more) processors 2004 can provide the various functions described above. In addition, the computer system 2000 may include a processing acceleration unit 2006, which may include a digital signal processor (DSP), a special processor and / or the like.

[0240] I / O subsystem 2008 may include user interface input devices and user interface output devices. User interface input devices may include keyboards, pointing devices such as mice or trackballs, touch pads or touch screens incorporated into displays, scroll wheels, click wheels, dials, buttons, switches, keypads, audio input devices with voice command recognition systems, microphones, and other types of input devices. User interface input devices may include, for example, motion sensing and / or gesture recognition devices, such as those that enable a user to control input devices through a natural user interface using gestures and verbal commands (such as Microsoft 360 game controller) and interact with it Motion sensors. User interface input devices may also include eye gesture recognition devices such as Google Blink detector, which detects eye activity from the user (e.g., "blinking" when taking a picture and / or making a menu selection) and converts the eye gesture to an input device (e.g., Google ) input. In addition, the user interface input device may include a device that enables a user to communicate with a speech recognition system (e.g., Navigator) interactive voice recognition sensing device.

[0241] The user interface input device may also include, but is not limited to, a three-dimensional (3D) mouse, a joystick or indicator rod, a game controller, and a graphics tablet, as well as audio / video equipment, such as a speaker, a digital camera, a digital video camera, a portable media player, a webcam, an image scanner, a fingerprint scanner, a barcode reader 3D scanner, a 3D printer, a laser rangefinder, and an eye gaze tracking device. In addition, the user interface input device may include, for example, a medical imaging input device, such as a computer tomography, a magnetic resonance imaging, a positron emission tomography, a medical ultrasound device. The user interface input device may also include, for example, an audio input device, such as a MIDI keyboard, a digital musical instrument, etc.

[0242] The user interface output device may include a display subsystem, indicator lights, or non-visual displays such as audio output devices, etc. The display subsystem may be a cathode ray tube (CRT), a flat panel device such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma display, a projection device, a touch screen, etc. In general, the use of the term "output device" is intended to include all possible types of devices and mechanisms for outputting information from the computer system 2000 to a user or other computers. For example, user interface output devices may include, but are not limited to, a variety of display devices that deliver text, graphics, and audio / video information in a visual manner, such as monitors, printers, speakers, headphones, car navigation systems, plotters, voice output devices, and modems.

[0243] The computer system 2000 may include a storage subsystem 2018 that may provide a tangible, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium for storing software and data structures that provide the functionality of the embodiments described in the present disclosure. The software may include programs, code modules, instructions, scripts, etc. that, when executed by one or more cores or processors of the processing unit 2004, provide the functionality described above. The storage subsystem 2018 may also provide a repository for storing data used in accordance with the present disclosure.

[0244] like Fig. 20 As shown in the example of , storage subsystem 2018 may include various components, including system memory 2010, computer-readable storage media 2022, and computer-readable storage media reader 2020. System memory 2010 may store program instructions that may be loaded and executed by processing unit 2004. System memory 2010 may also store data used during instruction execution and / or data generated during program instruction execution. Various different types of programs may be loaded into system memory 2010, including but not limited to client applications, web browsers, middle-tier applications, relational database management systems (RDBMS), virtual machines, containers, and the like.

[0245] System memory 2010 may also store an operating system 2016. Examples of operating system 2016 may include various versions of Microsoft Apple and / or Linux operating systems, various commercial or UNIX-like operating systems (including but not limited to various GNU / Linux operating systems, Google OS, etc.) and / or mobile operating systems such as iOS, Phone, OS, OS and In some implementations where the computer system 2000 executes one or more virtual machines, the virtual machines along with their guest operating systems (GOS) may be loaded into the system memory 2010 and executed by one or more processors or cores of the processing unit 2004 .

[0246] The system memory 2010 can have different configurations depending on the type of computer system 2000. For example, the system memory 2010 can be volatile memory (such as random access memory (RAM)) and / or non-volatile memory (such as read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, etc.). Different types of RAM configurations can be provided, including static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), etc. In some implementations, the system memory 2010 can include a basic input / output system (BIOS), which contains the basic routines that help transfer information between elements within the computer system 2000, such as during startup.

[0247] Computer-readable storage media 2022 may represent remote, local, fixed and / or removable storage devices and storage media for temporarily and / or more permanently containing and storing computer-readable information used by computer system 2000 , including instructions executable by processing unit 2004 of computer system 2000 .

[0248] Computer readable storage media 2022 may include any suitable media known or used in the art, including storage media and communication media, such as, but not limited to, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storing and / or transmitting information. This may include tangible computer readable storage media such as RAM, ROM, electronically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disk (DVD) or other optical storage, cassettes, magnetic tape, disk storage or other magnetic storage devices or other tangible computer readable media.

[0249] By way of example, computer-readable storage media 2022 may include a hard disk drive that reads from or writes to non-removable nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive that reads from or writes to removable nonvolatile magnetic disks, and a magnetic disk drive that reads from or writes to removable nonvolatile optical disks (such as CD ROMs, DVDs, and Computer readable storage media 2022 may include, but is not limited to, Drive, flash memory card, universal serial bus (USB) flash memory drive, secure digital (SD) card, DVD disk, digital video tape, etc. The computer readable storage medium 2022 may also include a solid-state drive (SSD) based on non-volatile memory (such as a flash-based SSD, an enterprise flash drive, a solid-state ROM, etc.), an SSD based on volatile memory (such as a solid-state RAM, dynamic RAM, static RAM, DRAM-based SSD), a magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) SSD, and a hybrid SSD using a combination of DRAM and a flash-based SSD. The disk drive and its associated computer-readable media can provide non-volatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, and other data for the computer system 2000.

[0250] Machine-readable instructions executable by one or more processors or cores of processing unit 2004 may be stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium may include a physically tangible memory or storage device including a volatile memory storage device and / or a non-volatile storage device. Examples of non-transitory computer-readable storage media include magnetic storage media (e.g., magnetic disks or tapes), optical storage media (e.g., DVDs, CDs), various types of RAM, ROM or flash memory, a hard disk drive, a floppy disk drive, a removable memory drive (e.g., a USB drive), or other types of storage devices.

[0251] The communication subsystem 2024 provides an interface to other computer systems and networks. The communication subsystem 2024 is used as an interface for receiving data from other systems from the computer system 2000 and sending data to other systems. For example, the communication subsystem 2024 can enable the computer system 2000 to be connected to one or more devices via the Internet. In some embodiments, the communication subsystem 2024 may include a radio frequency (RF) transceiver component, a global positioning system (GPS) receiver component and / or other components for accessing a wireless voice and / or data network (e.g., using cellular phone technology, advanced data network technology, such as 3G, 4G or EDGE (Enhanced Data Rate Global Evolution), WiFi (IEEE 802.11 series standards, or other mobile communication technologies, or any combination thereof). In some embodiments, in addition to or in place of a wireless interface, the communication subsystem 2024 may provide wired network connectivity (e.g., Ethernet).

[0252] In some embodiments, the communication subsystem 2024 may also receive input communications in the form of structured and / or unstructured data feeds 2026 , event streams 2028 , event updates 2030 , and the like on behalf of one or more users who may use the computer system 2000 .

[0253] For example, the communication subsystem 2024 may be configured to receive data feeds 2026 in real time from users of social networks and / or other communication services, such as feed, Updates, web feeds such as Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds, and / or real-time updates from one or more third-party information sources.

[0254] In addition, the communication subsystem 2024 can also be configured to receive data in the form of a continuous data stream, which can include an event stream 2028 of real-time events and / or event updates 2030, which can be continuous or unbounded in nature without a clear end. Examples of applications that generate continuous data can include, for example, sensor data applications, financial stocks, network performance measurement tools (e.g., network monitoring and traffic management applications), clickstream analysis tools, automobile traffic monitoring, etc.

[0255] The communication subsystem 2024 may also be configured to output structured and / or unstructured data feeds 2026 , event streams 2028 , event updates 2030 , etc. to one or more databases that may be in computer communication with one or more streaming data source computers coupled to the computer system 2000 .

[0256] Computer system 2000 may be one of various types, including a handheld portable device (e.g., Cellular phone, computing tablets, PDAs), wearable devices (e.g., Google head mounted displays), PCs, workstations, mainframes, kiosks, server racks, or any other data processing system.

[0257] Due to the constantly changing nature of computers and networks, the description of the computer system 2000 depicted in the figure is intended only as a specific example. Many other configurations with more or less components than the system depicted in the figure are possible. For example, custom hardware can also be used and / or specific elements can be implemented with hardware, firmware, software (including applets) or combinations. In addition, connections with other computing devices (such as network input / output devices) can be adopted. Based on the disclosure and teaching provided herein, those of ordinary skill in the art will understand other ways and / or methods for implementing various embodiments.

[0258] Although specific embodiments have been described, various modifications, variations, alternative constructions, and equivalents are also included within the scope of the present disclosure. The embodiments are not limited to operation within certain specific data processing environments, but can freely operate within multiple data processing environments. In addition, although the embodiments have been described using a specific series of transactions and steps, it should be apparent to those skilled in the art that the scope of the present disclosure is not limited to the described series of transactions and steps. The various features and aspects of the above-described embodiments may be used alone or in combination.

[0259] In addition, although the embodiments have been described using a specific combination of hardware and software, it should be appreciated that other combinations of hardware and software are also within the scope of the present disclosure. The embodiments may be implemented with hardware only, or software only, or using a combination thereof. The various processes described herein may be implemented in any combination on the same processor or different processors. Therefore, where a component or module is described as being configured to perform certain operations, such a configuration may be implemented, for example, by designing an electronic circuit to perform the operation, by programming a programmable electronic circuit (such as a microprocessor) to perform the operation, or any combination thereof. The process may communicate using a variety of techniques including but not limited to conventional techniques for inter-process communication, and different process pairs may use different techniques, or the same process pair may use different techniques at different times.

[0260] Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. However, it will be apparent that additions, subtractions, deletions and other modifications and alterations may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope as set forth in the claims. Therefore, although specific disclosed embodiments have been described, these are not intended to be limiting. Various modifications and equivalents are within the scope of the appended claims.

[0261] The use of the terms "a" and "an" and "the" and similar referents in the context of describing the disclosed embodiments (especially in the context of the following claims) should be construed to cover both the singular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearly contradicted by context. The terms "comprising," "having," "including," and "containing" should be construed as open-ended terms (i.e., meaning "including, but not limited to") unless otherwise indicated. The term "connected to" should be interpreted as partially or fully contained, attached to, or combined together, even if something intervenes. Recitation of numerical ranges herein are merely intended to serve as a shorthand method of referring individually to each separate value falling within the range, and each separate value is incorporated into the specification as if it were individually recited herein. All methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or clearly contradicted by context. The use of any and all examples or exemplary language (e.g., "such as") provided herein is intended merely to better illustrate the embodiments and does not limit the scope of the disclosure unless otherwise claimed. No language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element is essential to the practice of the disclosure.

[0262] Unless expressly stated otherwise, disjunctive language, such as the phrase "at least one of X, Y, or Z," is intended to be understood within the context as generally used to indicate that an item, term, etc., can be X, Y, or Z, or any combination thereof (e.g., X, Y, and / or Z). Thus, such disjunctive language is generally not intended to, and should not, imply that certain embodiments require that at least one of X, at least one of Y, or at least one of Z each be present.

[0263] Preferred embodiments of the present disclosure are described herein, including known best modes for carrying out the present disclosure. After reading the foregoing description, the variations of those preferred embodiments may become clear to those of ordinary skill in the art. Those of ordinary skill should be able to appropriately adopt such variations, and the present disclosure may be put into practice except as specifically described herein. Therefore, the present disclosure includes all modifications and equivalents of the subject matter listed in the appended claims as permitted by applicable law. In addition, unless otherwise specified herein, any combination of the above-mentioned elements in all possible variations thereof is included in the present disclosure.

[0264] All references, including publications, patent applications, and patents, cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each reference were individually and specifically indicated to be incorporated by reference in its entirety and were set forth herein.

[0265] In the foregoing description, aspects of the present disclosure are described with reference to specific embodiments of the present disclosure, but those skilled in the art will recognize that the present disclosure is not limited thereto. The various features and aspects disclosed above may be used alone or in combination. In addition, embodiments may be utilized in any number of environments and applications beyond those described herein without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the present specification. Therefore, the description and drawings are considered to be illustrative rather than restrictive.< / realm>

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for communicating within a container environment, comprising: configuring, by a computer system, a first node within a container environment, the first node comprising a first pod representing a set of one or more containers having shared resources; configuring, by the computer system, communications from the first cabin via the first virtual communication device; receiving, by the computer system at a first virtualized network interface card (VNIC) connected to a first node within the container environment, data from a first virtual communication device assigned to a first pod within the first node, the data being configured to be transmitted to a destination device; as well as The data is routed by the computer system to the destination device via the first virtualized network interface card, the data including at least an address identifying a first pod.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein: The destination facility includes a second compartment different from the first compartment, and The first compartment and the second compartment share a first virtualized network interface card.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 or 2, wherein: The destination device includes a second virtualized network interface card different from the first virtualized network interface card, and The second virtualized network interface card and the first virtualized network interface card are both attached to the first node of the container environment.

4. A computer-implemented method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein: The destination device includes a second virtualized network interface card different from the first virtualized network interface card, and A second virtualized network interface card is attached to a second node of the container environment that is different from the first node.

5. The computer-implemented method of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the destination device comprises a virtual cloud network (VCN).

6. The computer-implemented method of any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the first virtual communication device comprises an Internet Protocol Virtual Local Area Network (IPvlan) device.

7. A computer-implemented method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, comprising: receiving, by the computer system, a response at a first virtual communication device in a first compartment; sending, by the computer system, the response via one or more virtual Ethernet (veth) pairs of the first pod; and The response is sent by the computer system to a container located in the first compartment.

8. The computer-implemented method of any one of claims 1 to 7, comprising, in response to determining by the computer system that the destination device includes a second pod that shares a first virtualized network interface card with a first pod: routing, by the computer system, the data through the first virtualized network interface card using a hairpin operation; and The data is routed, by the computer system, from the first virtualized network interface card to a second virtual communication device of the second bay.

9. The computer-implemented method of any one of claims 1 to 8, comprising, in response to determining by the computer system that the destination device comprises a second pod of the first node connected to a second virtualized network interface card separate from the first virtualized network interface card: routing, by the computer system, the data from the first virtualized network interface card to the second virtualized network interface card; and The data is routed, by the computer system, from the second virtualized network interface card to a second virtual communication device of a second bay within the first node.

10. The computer-implemented method of any one of claims 1 to 9, comprising, in response to determining by the computer system that the destination device comprises a second pod of a second node separate from the first node, wherein the second pod is connected to a second virtualized network interface card separate from the first virtualized network interface card: routing, by the computer system, the data from the first virtualized network interface card to the second virtualized network interface card; and The data is routed, by the computer system, from a second virtualized network interface card to a second virtual communication device of a second bay within a second node.

11. A system comprising: One or more processors configured to: configuring a first node within the container environment, the first node comprising a first pod representing a set of one or more containers having shared resources; configuring communications from the first cabin via the first virtual communication device; receiving, at a first virtualized network interface card (VNIC) connected to a first node within the container environment, data from a first virtual communication device assigned to a first pod within the first node, the data being configured to be transmitted to a destination device; as well as The data is routed to the destination device by the first virtualized network interface card, the data including at least an address identifying the first pod.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein: The destination facility includes a second compartment different from the first compartment, and The first compartment and the second compartment share a first virtualized network interface card.

13. A system according to claim 11 or 12, wherein: The destination device includes a second virtualized network interface card different from the first virtualized network interface card, and The second virtualized network interface card and the first virtualized network interface card are both attached to the first node of the container environment.

14. A system according to any one of claims 11 to 13, wherein: The destination device includes a second virtualized network interface card different from the first virtualized network interface card, and A second virtualized network interface card is attached to a second node of the container environment that is different from the first node.

15. The system of any one of claims 11 to 14, wherein the destination device comprises a virtual cloud network (VCN).

16. The system according to any one of claims 1 to 15, wherein the first virtual communication device comprises an Internet Protocol Virtual Local Area Network (IPvlan) device.

17. The information according to any one of claims 11 to 16, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: receiving a response at a first virtual communication device in a first cabin; sending the response via one or more virtual Ethernet (veth) pairs of the first pod; and The response is sent to a container located in the first compartment.

18. The system of any one of claims 11 to 17, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to, in response to determining that the destination device includes a second pod that shares a first virtualized network interface card with the first pod: routing the data through the first virtualized network interface card using a hairpin operation; and The data is routed from the first virtualized network interface card to a second virtual communication device in the second bay.

19. The system of any one of claims 11 to 18, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to, in response to determining that the destination device includes a second pod of the first node connected to a second virtualized network interface card separate from the first virtualized network interface card: routing the data from the first virtualized network interface card to the second virtualized network interface card; and The data is routed from the second virtualized network interface card to a second virtual communication device of a second bay within the first node.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a set of instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, causes a process to be performed, the process comprising: configuring, by a computer system, a first node within a container environment, the first node comprising a first pod representing a set of one or more containers having shared resources; configuring, by the computer system, communications from the first cabin via the first virtual communication device; receiving, by the computer system at a first virtualized network interface card (VNIC) connected to a first node within the container environment, data from a first virtual communication device assigned to a first pod within the first node, the data being configured to be transmitted to a destination device; as well as The data is routed by the computer system to the destination device via the first virtualized network interface card, the data including at least an address identifying a first pod.

21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the set of instructions further causes the processing of the method of any one of claims 2-10 to be performed.

22. An apparatus comprising: means for configuring a first node within a container environment, the first node comprising a first pod representing a set of one or more containers having shared resources; means for configuring communications from the first cabin via the first virtual communication device; means for receiving, at a first virtualized network interface card (VNIC) connected to a first node within the container environment, data from a first virtual communication device assigned to a first pod within the first node, the data being configured to be transmitted to a destination device; as well as Means for routing the data to the destination device via the first virtualized network interface card, the data comprising at least an address identifying the first pod.

23. A computer program product comprising computer instructions which, when executed by a processor, implement the operations of the method of any one of claims 1-10.

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