Geometry-based flow programming

Abstract

Systems and methods for geometry-based stream programming are disclosed herein. The method can include receiving, at a first network virtualization device ("NVD"), at least one compiled rule, each of the at least one compiled rule being adaptable to a class of packets received by the first NVD for delivery to a virtualized network interface card ("VNIC"). The method can include receiving, at the first NVD, a first packet for delivery to the first VNIC, determining, with the first NVD, that a first rule of the at least one compiled rule is applicable to the first packet, and processing, with the first NVD, the first packet according to the first rule.

Description

[0001] CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0002] This application claims priority to U.S. Patent Application No. 17 / 845,779, filed on June 21, 2022, entitled “GEOMETRIC BASED FLOW PROGRAMMING,” which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. Background Art

[0003] The present application relates to packet processing within a network. Specifically, communications within a virtual cloud network (VCN) are passed between virtual network interface cards (VNICs) via one or more network virtualization devices (NVDs). Rules can be preloaded on the NVD, and one of the rules can be used to process a packet. In general, these rules provided to the NVD can be large and cumbersome. Thus, improvements are desired. Summary of the invention

[0004] One aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method that includes receiving at least one compiled rule at a first network virtualization device ("NVD"). In some embodiments, each of the at least one compiled rule applies to a class of packets received by the first NVD for delivery to a virtualized network interface card ("VNIC"). The method may include receiving at the first NVD a first packet for delivery to a first VNIC, determining, using the first NVD, that a first rule of the at least one compiled rule applies to the first packet, and processing, using the first NVD, the first packet according to the first rule.

[0005] In some embodiments, the first packet is processed according to the first rule and according to at least one attribute of the first packet. In some embodiments, the at least one attribute of the packet includes at least one of: a destination address, and a source address. In some embodiments, the source address includes at least one of: a source IP address; and a source port identifier. In some embodiments, the destination address includes at least one of: a destination IP address; and a destination port identifier.

[0006] In some embodiments, each of the at least one compiled rule comprises: a stream key; a security policy; and mapping information. In some embodiments, the security policy may comprise a local security policy and / or a remote security policy. In some embodiments, each of the at least one compiled rule further comprises packet transformation information, and throttling information.

[0007] In some embodiments, the method includes receiving, at a first NVD, a second packet for delivery to a second VNIC, determining, using the first NVD, that the first NVD does not have a rule for processing the second packet, and forwarding the second packet to at least one server. In some embodiments, the at least one server may process the second packet. In some embodiments, the at least one server may include configuration information for a set of VNICs in at least one virtual network.

[0008] In some embodiments, the method includes determining a rule for processing the second packet with at least one server, and processing the second packet with at least one server according to the determined rule. In some embodiments, the rule is determined based on the configuration information and at least one attribute of the second packet. In some embodiments, at least one attribute of the packet includes at least one of a destination address and a source address. In some embodiments, the source address includes at least one of a source IP address and a source port identifier. In some embodiments, the destination address includes at least one of a destination IP address and a destination port identifier.

[0009] In some embodiments, the method includes generating new compiled rules, and providing the new compiled rules to a first NVD. In some embodiments, the new compiled rules include a second rule. In some embodiments, generating the new compiled rules includes identifying potential rules for each of a plurality of stages, each potential rule being associated with a plurality of packet flows, and forming the new compiled rules from an intersection between the potential rules for each of a plurality of stages of the flows. In some embodiments, the method includes identifying a plurality of NVDs similar to the first NVD, and providing the new compiled rules to a plurality of NVDs similar to the first NVD. In some embodiments, the plurality of stages include two or more of a routing stage, a security stage, a throttling stage, and a transformation stage.

[0010] One aspect of the present disclosure relates to a system. The system includes at least one server including a plurality of compiled rules, and a first network virtualization device ("NVD"). The first NVD may receive at least one compiled rule. In some embodiments, each of the at least one compiled rule applies to a class of packets received by the first NVD for delivery to a virtualized network interface card ("VNIC"). The first NVD may also be configured to receive a first packet for delivery to the first VNIC, determine that a first rule of at least one compiled rule applies to the first packet, and process the first packet according to the first rule. In some embodiments, the first NVD may also receive a second packet for delivery to a second VNIC, determine that the first NVD has no rule for processing the second packet, and forward the second packet to at least one server. In some embodiments, at least one server may include configuration information for a set of VNICs in at least one virtual network, and at least one server may determine a rule for processing the second packet, the rule being determined based on the configuration information and at least one attribute of the second packet, and process the second packet according to the determined rule.

[0011] One aspect of the present disclosure relates to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a plurality of instructions executable by one or more processors of a first network virtualization device ("NVD"). In some embodiments, when executed by one or more processors of the first NVD, the plurality of instructions causes the one or more processors of the first NVD to receive at least one compiled rule, receive a first packet for delivery to a first VNIC, determine that a first rule of the at least one compiled rule is applicable to the first packet, and process the first packet according to the first rule. In some embodiments, each of the at least one compiled rule is applicable to a class of packets received by the first NVD for delivery to a virtualized network interface card ("VNIC"). BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0012] Figure 1 is a high-level diagram of a distributed environment illustrating 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 machine is connected to multiple network virtualization devices (NVDs).

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

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

[0017] Figure 6 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of an NVD.

[0018] Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of a system for processing packets and generating and distributing compiled rules.

[0019] Figure 8 is a flow chart illustrating one embodiment of a process for operation of a NVD.

[0020] Fig. 9 is a flow chart illustrating one embodiment of a process for operation of all or a portion of a server fleet.

[0021] Fig.10 is a graphical depiction of one embodiment of applying the modified LPM algorithm.

[0022] Fig.11 is a depiction of a second embodiment of the grouping process.

[0023] Fig.12 is a block diagram illustrating one mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment.

[0024] Fig.13 is a block diagram illustrating another mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment.

[0025] Fig.14 is a block diagram illustrating another mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment.

[0026] Fig.15 is a block diagram illustrating another mode for implementing a cloud infrastructure as a service system according to at least one embodiment.

[0027] Fig.16 is a block diagram illustrating an example computer system in accordance with at least one embodiment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0028] Example Virtual Networking Architecture

[0029] The term cloud service is generally used to refer to services provided on-demand (e.g., via a subscription model) by a cloud service provider (CSP) to users or customers using systems and infrastructure (cloud infrastructure) provided by the CSP. Typically, the servers and systems that make up the CSP's infrastructure are separate from the customer's own on-premises servers and systems. Therefore, customers can take advantage of cloud services provided by a CSP without having to purchase separate hardware and software resources for the service. Cloud services are designed to provide subscribing customers with simple, scalable access to applications and computing resources without requiring customers to invest in the infrastructure used to provide the service.

[0030] There are several cloud service providers that offer various types of cloud services. There are various different types or models of cloud services including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), etc.

[0031] 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 via this account.

[0032] As mentioned above, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a specific type of cloud computing service. In the IaaS model, the CSP provides infrastructure (called Cloud Service Provider Infrastructure or CSPI) that customers can use 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.

[0033] CSPI may include interconnected high-performance computing resources, including various host machines, memory resources, and network resources that form a physical network, which is also referred to as a substrate network or underlying network. The resources in CSPI may be spread across one or more data centers, which may be geographically spread 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 substrate network or underlying network) includes physical network devices, such as physical switches, routers, computers, and host machines. An overlay network is a logical (or virtual) network that runs on top of a physical substrate 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). A virtual network is implemented using software virtualization technology (e.g., a hypervisor, virtualization functions implemented by a network virtualization device (NVD) (e.g., smartNIC), a top-of-rack (TOR) switch, an intelligent TOR that implements one or more functions performed by the NVD, and other mechanisms) to create a layer of network abstraction that can run on top of a physical network. A virtual network can take many forms, including peer-to-peer networks, IP networks, and the like. A virtual network is typically either a layer 3 IP network or a layer 2 VLAN. This method of virtual or overlay networking is often referred to as a virtual or overlay layer 3 network. Examples of protocols developed for virtual networks include IP-in-IP (or Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)), Virtual Extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN—IETF RFC7348), Virtual Private Network (VPN) (e.g., MPLS Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (RFC 4364)), VMware's NSX, GENEVE (Generic Network Virtualization Encapsulation), and the like.

[0034] 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 service providers can host infrastructure components (e.g., servers, storage devices, network nodes (e.g., hardware), deployment software, platform virtualization (e.g., hypervisor layer), etc.). In some cases, IaaS providers can also supply various 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 a collection of infrastructure and complementary cloud services that enable customers to build and run a wide range of applications and services in a highly available, hosted, distributed environment. CSPI provides high-performance computing resources and capabilities and storage capacity in a flexible virtual network that can be securely accessed from various networked locations (such as from the customer's on-premises 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 their cloud resources.

[0035] Customers can build their own virtual networks using the computing, storage, and networking resources provided by CSPI. 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 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, and the like. Therefore, CSPI provides a collection of infrastructure and complementary cloud services that enable customers to build and run a wide range of applications and services in a highly available virtual hosted environment. Customers do not manage or control the underlying physical resources provided by CSPI, but can control operating systems, storage devices, and deployed applications; and may have limited control over selected networking components (e.g., firewalls).

[0036] 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.

[0037] 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 machine 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 protections are implemented in CSPI to ensure that each tenant's data is isolated and remains invisible to other tenants.

[0038] 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 can 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 network devices, physical computers (or host machines), etc. 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 can be a layer 2 address (e.g., a MAC address), a fixed layer 3 address (e.g., an IP address), etc. In a virtualized environment or virtual network, endpoints can include various virtual endpoints, such as virtual machines hosted by components of the physical network (e.g., hosted by a physical host machine). These endpoints in a virtual network are addressed by overlay addresses, such as overlay layer 2 addresses (e.g., overlay MAC addresses) and overlay layer 3 addresses (e.g., overlay IP addresses). Network overlays achieve flexibility by allowing network administrators to move around overlay addresses associated with network endpoints using software management (e.g., via software that implements a control plane for a virtual network). Thus, unlike 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 a virtual network is built on top of a physical network, communication between components in a 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 a virtual network to actual physical addresses in a substrate network, and vice versa. These mappings are then used to facilitate communication. Customer traffic is encapsulated to facilitate routing in a virtual network.

[0039] Thus, a physical address (e.g., a physical IP address) is associated with a component in a physical network, while an overlay address (e.g., an overlay IP address) is associated with an entity 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 an overlay address associated with a computing instance in a customer's virtual cloud network (VCN). Two different customers or tenants, each with their own private VCN, can potentially use the same overlay IP address in their VCNs without knowing each other. Both physical IP addresses and overlay IP addresses are types of real IP addresses. They 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 the 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.

[0040] The cloud infrastructure or CSPI is physically hosted in one or more data centers in one or more regions of the world. The CSPI may include components in a physical or substrate network and virtualized components (e.g., virtual networks, computing instances, virtual machines, etc.) located in a virtual network built on top of the physical network components. In some embodiments, the CSPI is organized and hosted in domains, regions, and availability domains. A region is typically a localized geographic area containing one or more data centers. Regions are generally independent of each other and can be far apart, for example, across countries or even continents. For example, a first region may be in Australia, another in Japan, another 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 collection 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 devices, file storage devices, object storage devices, archive storage devices); networking resources (e.g., virtual cloud networks (VCNs), 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 that area to other regions in the realm.

[0041] Generally speaking, an application is deployed in the region where it is most frequently used (i.e., on the infrastructure associated with that region) because it is faster to use nearby resources than to use distant resources. Applications may also be deployed in different regions for various reasons such as redundancy, to mitigate the risk of region-wide events (such as large weather systems or earthquakes), to meet different requirements of legal jurisdictions, tax domains, and other business or social standards, etc.

[0042] 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 this distributed environment, CSPI resources are either region-specific, such as a virtual cloud network (VCN), or availability domain-specific, such as a compute instance.

[0043] ADs within a region are isolated from each other, fault-tolerant, and configured so that it is extremely unlikely that they will fail at the same time. 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 in 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 connections to other networks (e.g., the Internet, the customer's on-premises network, etc.) and to build replication systems in multiple ADs for high availability and disaster recovery. 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, as well as additional capacity. Traffic between availability domains is typically encrypted.

[0044] 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 within a single domain and can be spread across one or more regions that belong 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 (called the "home" region). A customer can extend the customer's lease to one or more other regions within a domain. A customer cannot access regions that are not in the domain where the customer's lease is located.

[0045] 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 domain may be provided for a specific country for customers within that country. As yet another example, a government domain may be provided for governments, etc. For example, a government domain may cater to a specific government and may have a higher level of security than a business domain. For example, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) currently offers a domain for business regions and two domains (e.g., FedRAMP-authorized and IL5-authorized) for government cloud regions.

[0046] In some embodiments, AD can be subdivided into one or more fault domains. Fault domains are groupings of infrastructure resources within an AD to provide anti-affinity. Fault domains allow the distribution of computing instances so that they are not located on the same physical hardware within a single AD. This is called anti-affinity. A fault domain refers to a collection of hardware components (computers, switches, etc.) that share a single point of failure. The computing pool is logically divided into 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 used for each AD may vary. For example, in some embodiments, each AD contains three fault domains. Fault domains act as logical data centers within an AD.

[0047] 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 set up 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 can communicate with publicly accessible endpoints ("public endpoints"), with other instances in the same VCN or other VCNs (e.g., other VCNs of customers or VCNs that do not belong to customers), with customers' on-premises data centers or networks, and with service endpoints and other types of endpoints through public networks (such as the Internet).

[0048] CSPs can use CSPI to provide various services. In some cases, customers of CSPI can themselves act like service providers and use CSPI resources to provide services. 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 use a particular service by accessing the service endpoints exposed by the service for that particular service. These service endpoints are generally endpoints that are publicly accessible to 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.

[0049] In some embodiments, a service provider may expose a service via an endpoint for the service (sometimes referred to as a service endpoint). Customers of the service may then use this service endpoint to access the service. In some embodiments, the service endpoint provided for a service may be accessed by multiple customers who intend to consume the service. In other embodiments, a dedicated service endpoint may be provided to a customer so that only the customer can access the service using the dedicated service endpoint.

[0050] In certain 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 (e.g., 10.0 / 16) assigned to the VCN. 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 availability domains in that region. A gateway is a virtual interface configured for the VCN and enables communication of traffic between the VCN and one or more endpoints external to the VCN. One or more different types of gateways can be configured for the VCN to enable communication with different types of endpoints.

[0051] A VCN may be subdivided into one or more subnetworks, such as one or more subnets. Thus, a subnet is a unit or subdivision of a configuration that can be created within a VCN. A VCN may 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 represent a subset of the address space within the address space of the VCN.

[0052] Each computing instance is associated with a virtual network interface card (VNIC), which enables the computing instance to participate in the subnet of the VCN. VNIC is a logical representation of a physical network interface card (NIC). In general, 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 associated security rules or policies. VNICs are equivalent to layer 2 ports on switches. VNICs are attached to subnets within computing instances and VCNs. The VNICs associated with computing instances make the computing instances part of the subnet of the VCN, and enable the computing instances to communicate (e.g., send and receive packets) with endpoints 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 computing instances determine how the computing instances are 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 set of compute instances, the subnet contains VNICs corresponding to the set of compute instances, each VNIC being attached to a compute instance within the set of compute instances.

[0053] A private overlay IP address is assigned to each computing instance via the VNIC associated with the computing instance. This private overlay network IP address is assigned to the VNIC associated with the computing instance when the computing instance is created and is used to route traffic in and out of the computing instance. All VNICs in a given subnet use the same routing table, security list, and DHCP options. As described above, each subnet within the VCN is associated with a continuous range of overlay IP addresses (e.g., 10.0.0.0 / 24 and 10.0.1.0 / 24), which do not overlap with other subnets in the VCN and represent a subset of the address space within the address space of the VCN. For a VNIC on a specific 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.

[0054] 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 either on the same VNIC or on multiple VNICs associated with the computing instance. However, each instance has a primary VNIC, which is created during instance startup and is associated with the overlay private IP address assigned to the instance—this primary VNIC cannot be deleted. Additional VNICs, called secondary VNICs, can 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 can be located in a subnet in the same VCN as the primary VNIC, or in a different subnet in the same VCN or in a different VCN.

[0055] If the compute instances are in a public subnet, they can optionally be assigned public IP addresses. When creating a subnet, you can specify the subnet as either 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 public overlay IP addresses. A public subnet means that the resources in the subnet and associated VNICs can have public IP addresses. Customers can specify that a subnet exists in a single availability domain or across multiple availability domains in a region or domain.

[0056] 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 simply a VR) enables communication between subnets of the VCN. For a subnet within a VCN, the VR represents a logical gateway for the subnet, which enables the subnet (i.e., the computing instances on the subnet) to communicate with endpoints on other subnets within the VCN and other endpoints outside the VCN. A VCN VR is a logical entity that is configured to route traffic between VNICs in the VCN and a virtual gateway ("gateway") associated with the VCN. Figure 1The gateway is 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 has a potentially unlimited number of ports addressed by IP addresses, 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 in the overlay IP address range for a subnet is reserved for the port of the VCN VR for that subnet. For example, consider that the VCN has two subnets, and the associated address ranges are 10.0 / 16 and 10.1 / 16, respectively. For the first subnet in the VCN with an address range of 10.0 / 16, the addresses in this range are reserved for the ports of the VCN VR for that subnet. In some cases, the first IP address in the range can be reserved for the VCN VR. For example, for a subnet with an overlay IP address range of 10.0 / 16, the IP address 10.0.0.1 can be reserved for the port of the VCN VR for that subnet. For a second subnet in the same VCN with an address range of 10.1 / 16, the VCN VR can have a port for the second subnet with an IP address of 10.1.0.1. The VCN VR has a different IP address for each subnet in the VCN.

[0057] In some other embodiments, each subnet within a VCN may have its own associated VR that may be addressed by the subnet using a reserved or default IP address associated with the VR. For example, the reserved or default IP address may be the first IP address in 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. A VR associated with a subnet within the VCN may communicate with other VRs associated with other subnets within the VCN. The VR may also communicate with a gateway associated with the VCN. The VR functions for the subnet run on or are performed by one or more NVDs that perform VNIC functions for the VNICs in the subnet.

[0058] 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 and from the VCN. DHCP options refer to configuration information that is automatically provided to an instance when the instance starts.

[0059] 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 type of traffic (e.g., based on protocol and port) allowed in and out of instances within the VCN. Customers can choose whether a given rule is stateful or stateless. For example, a customer can allow incoming SSH traffic from anywhere to a collection of instances by setting up 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 collection 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 default security list with default security rules can be provided for a VCN. The DHCP options configured for a VCN provide configuration information that is automatically provided to an instance in the VCN when it starts.

[0060] In some embodiments, configuration information for a VCN is determined and stored by a VCN control plane. For example, configuration information for a VCN may include 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 a VCN control plane or a portion 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 or from compute instances in the VCN.

[0061] In some embodiments, the creation of subnets and VCNs is handled by the VCN control plane (CP) and the launch 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 that is responsible for providing updates to the VCN data plane. An example of a VCN control plane is also provided at Fig.12 , 13 , 14 and 15 (see labels 1216, 1316, 1416 and 1516) and are described below.

[0062] 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.

[0063] Figure 1 , Figure 2 , Figure 3 , Figure 4 , Figure 5 , Fig.12 , Fig.13 , Fig.14 and Fig.16 Various different architectures for implementing cloud-based services using CSPI are depicted in and are described below. Figure 1 is a high-level diagram of a distributed environment 100 showing 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 embodiments, Figure 1 The distributed environment depicted in 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.

[0064] like Figure 1 As shown in the example depicted in , the distributed environment 100 includes a CSPI 101 that provides services and resources that customers can subscribe to and use to build their virtual cloud network (VCN). In some embodiments, CSPI 101 provides IaaS services to subscribing customers. Data centers within CSPI 101 can be organized into one or more regions. Figure 1 An example region "US Region" 102 is shown in FIG. 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.

[0065] exist Figure 1 In the embodiment depicted in , customer VCN 104 includes two subnets, namely, "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 a logical gateway for the VCN that enables communication between 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 may 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.

[0066] 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 host machines within CSPI 101. The computing instances participate in the subnet via the VNICs associated with the computing instances. For example, Figure 1 As shown in , compute instance C1 becomes part of subnet-1 via a VNIC associated with the compute instance. Similarly, compute instance C2 becomes 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 , the overlay IP address of compute instance C1 is 10.0.0.2 and the MAC address is M1, while the private overlay IP address of compute instance C2 is 10.0.0.3 and the MAC address is 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.

[0067] Multiple computing instances can be deployed on subnet-2, including virtual machine instances and / or bare metal instances. Figure 1 As shown in , compute instances D1 and D2 become part of subnet-2 via the VNICs associated with the respective compute instances. Figure 1 In the embodiment shown in , the overlay IP address of computing instance D1 is 10.1.0.2 and the MAC address is MM1, while the private overlay IP address of computing instance D2 is 10.1.0.3 and the MAC address is MM2. Each computing instance in subnet-2 (including computing 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 VCN VR 105 for subnet-2.

[0068] VCN A 104 may also include one or more load balancers. For example, a load balancer may be provided for a subnet, and the load balancer 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 the VCN.

[0069] A particular 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 particular 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 a VCN in the same region 106 or 110, communication between a computing instance in subnet-1 and an endpoint in a service point 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 a VCN in a different region 108). Compute instances in a subnet 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 a customer's on-premises network 116, endpoints in other remote cloud-hosted networks 118, public endpoints 114 accessible via a public network (such as the Internet), and other endpoints.

[0070] The VNICs associated with the source and destination computing instances are used 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 a packet 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 for 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 the packet is forwarded to the destination computing instance.

[0071] For packets to be delivered from a compute instance in a subnet to an endpoint in a different subnet in the same VCN, communication is facilitated through 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 VNIC associated with D1 then receives and processes the packet and the VNIC forwards the packet to compute instance D1.

[0072] For packets to be transmitted from a compute instance in VCN 104 to an endpoint outside of VCN 104, communication is 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 the flow of traffic between a VCN and other VCNs or networks. A variety of 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 conducted over a public network (e.g., the Internet) or over a private network. Various communication protocols may be used for these communications.

[0073] 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 for VCN 104. VCN VR 105 then processes the packet and, as part of the processing, determines a specific gateway associated with VCN 104 as a 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 delivery of the packet to its final intended destination.

[0074] 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. Fig.12 , 13 , 14 and 15 (e.g., gateways referenced by reference numerals 1234, 1236, 1238, 1334, 1336, 1538, 1434, 1436, 1438, 1534, 1536, and 1538) and are 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 provide 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 other 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 generally very restricted. 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 communications, a communication channel 124 is set up, where one endpoint of the channel is located in the customer's on-premises network 116 and the other endpoint is located in the CSPI 101 and connected to the customer VCN 104. The communication channel 124 can pass through a public communication network (such as the Internet) or a private communication network. A variety of different communication protocols can be used, such as IPsec VPN technology over a public communication network (such as the Internet), Oracle's FastConnect technology that uses a private network instead of a public network, etc. The equipment or equipment that forms one endpoint of the communication channel 124 in the customer's on-premises network 116 is called customer premises equipment (CPE), such as Figure 1 On the CSPI 101 side, the endpoint may be a host machine executing DRG 122.

[0075] In some embodiments, a remote peer 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 RPC, a customer VCN 104 can connect with a VCN 108 in another region using a DRG 122. 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 Microsoft Azure Cloud, Amazon AWS Cloud, etc.).

[0076] like Figure 1As shown in , an Internet Gateway (IGW) 120 can be configured for a customer VCN 104, which 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 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.

[0077] A network address translation (NAT) gateway 128 may 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 do 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 privately access public endpoints on the Internet. In a NAT gateway, connections can only be initiated from a private subnet to the public Internet, and connections cannot be initiated from the Internet to a private subnet.

[0078] 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 service endpoints supported 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 available to 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 device, 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 may only be initiated from a subnet within the VCN, not from the service network 110. If a VCN is peered with another, resources in the other VCN generally cannot access the SGW. Resources in an on-premises network connected to a VCN using FastConnect or VPNConnect may also use the service gateway configured for that VCN.

[0079] In some embodiments, the SGW 126 uses the concept of a service classless inter-domain routing (CIDR) label, which is a string that represents all regional public IP address ranges for a service or group of services of interest. Customers use the service CIDR label when they configure the SGW and associated routing rules to control traffic to the service. If the public IP address of the service changes in the future, the customer can optionally use it when configuring security rules without having to adjust them.

[0080] A Local Peer 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 refers to the VCNs communicating using private IP addresses without the traffic having to traverse 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 peer it establishes. Local peering or VCN peering is a common practice for establishing network connectivity between different applications or infrastructure management functions.

[0081] Service providers (such as providers of services in service network 110) can provide access to services using different access models. According to the public access model, the service can be exposed as a public endpoint that can be publicly accessed by a computing instance in a customer VCN via a public network (such as the Internet), and / or can be privately accessed via SGW 126. According to a specific private access model, the service can be accessed as a private IP endpoint in a private subnet 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 appears as a VNIC (called 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 way to present services in a private customer VCN subnet using VNICs. Since the endpoint is exposed as a VNIC, all features associated with the VNIC (such as routing rules, security lists, etc.) can now be used for the PE VNIC.

[0082] Service providers can register their services to enable access through PE. 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.

[0083] The compute instances in the private subnet can then access the service using the private IP address or service DNS name of the PE VNIC. The compute 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 scale 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 to the private endpoint is routed to the service via PAGW 130. These are called customer-to-service private connections (C2S connections).

[0084] The PE concept can also be used to extend private access for services to the customer's on-premises networks and data centers by allowing traffic to flow through 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 PEs in the customer's VCN.

[0085] 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 decide whether to allow traffic to leave the VCN through a particular gateway. For example, in certain cases, a routing table for a public subnet within a customer VCN 104 can send non-local traffic through IGW 120. A routing table for a private subnet within the same customer VCN 104 can send traffic destined for a CSP service through SGW 126. All remaining traffic can be sent via NAT gateway 128. The routing table only controls traffic that leaves the VCN.

[0086] 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 specific types of traffic that are allowed to enter and exit the instances in the subnet of the VCN. Security list rules can include ingress (inbound) and egress (outbound) rules. For example, an ingress rule can specify a range of allowed source addresses, and an egress rule can specify a range of allowed destination addresses. Security rules can specify specific protocols (e.g., TCP, ICMP), specific ports (e.g., 22 for SSH, 3389 for Windows RDP), etc. In some embodiments, the operating system of the instance can enforce its own firewall rules that comply with the security list rules. Rules can be stateful (e.g., tracking connections and automatically allowing responses without explicit security list rules for response traffic) or stateless.

[0087] Access from a customer VCN (i.e., through resources or compute instances deployed on VCN 104) can be categorized as public access, private access, or dedicated access. Public access refers to an access model that uses a public IP address or NAT to access a public endpoint. Private access enables customer workloads (e.g., resources in a private subnet) in VCN 104 with private IP addresses to access services without traversing a public network such as the Internet. In certain embodiments, CSPI 101 enables customer VCN workloads with private IP addresses to access (public service endpoints of) services using a service gateway. Thus, the service gateway provides a private access model by establishing a virtual link between a customer's VCN and a public endpoint of a service that resides outside of the customer's private network.

[0088] Additionally, CSPI can provide dedicated public access using technologies such as FastConnect public peering, where a customer on-premises instance can use a FastConnect connection to access one or more services in a customer's VCN without traversing a public network such as the Internet. CSPI can also provide dedicated private access using FastConnect private peering, where a customer on-premises instance with a private IP address can use a FastConnect connection 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. FastConnect provides a simple, flexible, and cost-effective way to create dedicated and private connections with higher bandwidth options and a more reliable and consistent networking experience compared to Internet-based connections.

[0089] Figure 1and the accompanying description above describe various virtualized components in an example virtual network.As described above, a virtual network is built on an underlying physical or substrate network. Figure 2 A simplified architecture diagram of physical components in a physical network within a CSPI 200 that provides an underlying virtual network according to certain embodiments is depicted. As shown, the CSPI 200 provides a distributed environment that includes components and resources (e.g., computing, storage, and network 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 of the CSPI 200 (e.g., computing, storage, and network resources) is provisioned to the customer. The customer can then build its own cloud-based (i.e., CSPI-hosted) customizable and private virtual network using the physical computing, storage, and networking resources provided by the CSPI 200. As indicated previously, 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. The CSPI 200 provides a collection of infrastructure and complementary cloud services that enable customers to build and run a wide range of applications and services in a highly available hosting environment.

[0090] exist Figure 2 In the example embodiment depicted in , the physical components of CSPI 200 include one or more physical host machines 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), as well as switches in physical network 218. The physical host machines or servers can host and execute various computing instances that participate in 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 host machines depicted in the figure host the virtual machine compute instances in the VCN. The virtual machine compute instances in the VCN can be executed by one host machine or multiple different host machines. The physical host machines can also host virtual host machines, 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 machine and / or NVD described in .

[0091] A host machine or server may execute a hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor or VMM) that creates and enables a virtualized environment on the host machine. A virtualized or virtualized environment facilitates cloud-based computing. One or more computing instances may be created, executed, and managed on the host machine by a hypervisor on the host machine. The hypervisor on the host machine enables the physical computing resources (e.g., computing, memory, and network resources) of the host machine to be shared between the various computing instances executed by the host machine.

[0092] For example, Figure 2 As depicted in , host machines 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 an operating system (OS) of a host machine, which in turn executes on a hardware processor of the host machine. A hypervisor provides a virtualized environment by enabling the physical computing resources of the host machine (e.g., processing resources such as processors / cores, memory resources, network resources) to be shared among various virtual machine computing instances executed by the host machine. 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 machine 202 and enable the computing resources (e.g., processing, memory, and networking resources) of the host machine 202 to be shared between computing instances (e.g., virtual machines) executed by the host machine 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 machine. The operating system of a virtual machine executed by the host machine can be the same as or different from the operating system of another virtual machine executed by the same host machine. Therefore, the hypervisor enables multiple operating systems to be executed simultaneously with each other while sharing the same computing resources of the host machine. Figure 2 The host machines depicted in FIG. 1 may have the same or different types of hypervisors.

[0093] Compute instances can be virtual machine instances or bare metal instances. Figure 2 , compute instance 268 on host machine 202 and compute instance 274 on host machine 208 are examples of virtual machine instances. Host machine 206 is an example of a bare metal instance provided to a customer.

[0094] In some cases, the entire host machine can be supplied to a single customer, and one or more computing instances (or virtual machines or bare metal instances) hosted by the host machine all belong to the same customer. In other cases, the host machine can be shared between multiple customers (i.e., multiple tenants). In this multi-tenant scenario, the host machine can host virtual machine computing instances belonging to different customers. These computing instances can be members of different VCNs of different customers. In certain embodiments, the bare metal computing instance is hosted by a bare metal server without a hypervisor. When supplying a bare metal computing instance, a single customer or tenant maintains control of the physical CPU, memory, and network interface of the host machine hosting the bare metal instance, and the host machine is not shared with other customers or tenants.

[0095] As previously described, each compute instance that is part of a VCN is associated with a VNIC that enables the compute instance to be 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. The VNIC is associated with the compute instance when the compute instance is created. In some embodiments, for a compute instance executed by a host machine, the VNIC associated with the compute instance is executed by an NVD connected to the host machine. For example, in Figure 2 , host machine 202 executes virtual machine compute instance 268 associated with VNIC 276, and VNIC 276 is executed by NVD 210 connected to host machine 202. As another example, bare metal instance 272 hosted by host machine 206 is associated with VNIC 280 executed by NVD 212 connected to host machine 206. As yet another example, VNIC 284 is associated with compute instance 274 executed by host machine 208, and VNIC 284 is executed by NVD 212 connected to host machine 208.

[0096] For compute instances hosted by a host machine, the NVD connected to the host machine 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 the VCNs corresponding to the compute instances hosted by host machines 206 and 208.

[0097] The host machine may include one or more network interface cards (NICs) that enable the host machine to connect to other devices. The NIC on the host machine may provide one or more ports (or interfaces) that enable the host machine to communicatively connect to another device. For example, the host machine may connect to the NVD using one or more ports (or interfaces) provided on the host machine and on the NVD. The host machine may also connect to other devices (such as another host machine).

[0098] For example, in Figure 2 2, host machine 202 is connected to NVD 210 using link 220, which extends between port 234 provided by NIC 232 of host machine 202 and port 236 of NVD 210. Host machine 206 is connected to NVD 212 using link 224, which extends between port 246 provided by NIC 244 of host machine 206 and port 248 of NVD 212. Host machine 208 is connected to NVD 212 using link 226, which extends between port 252 provided by NIC 250 of host machine 208 and port 254 of NVD 212.

[0099] The NVD is in turn connected via communication links to top-of-rack (TOR) switches, which are connected to the physical network 218 (also referred to as a switching fabric). In some embodiments, the links between the host machine and the NVD and between the NVD and the TOR switches 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 host machines and NVDs connected to a TOR is sometimes referred to as a rack.

[0100] Physical network 218 provides a communication architecture that enables TOR switches to communicate with each other. Physical network 218 can be a multi-layer network. In some embodiments, 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 described in Figure 5 and described below.

[0101] There may be various connection configurations between the host machine and the NVD, such as one-to-one configuration, many-to-one configuration, one-to-many configuration, etc. In a one-to-one configuration implementation, each host machine is connected to its own separate NVD. Figure 2In , host machine 202 is connected to NVD 210 via NIC 232 of host machine 202. In a many-to-one configuration, multiple host machines are connected to one NVD. Figure 2 , host machines 206 and 208 are connected to the same NVD 212 via NICs 244 and 250, respectively.

[0102] In a one-to-many configuration, one host machine connects to multiple NVDs. Figure 3 An example within CSPI 300 is shown, where a host machine is connected to multiple NVDs. Figure 3 , a host machine 302 includes a network interface card (NIC) 304 that includes a plurality of ports 306 and 308. The host machine 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 machine 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.

[0103] Figure 3 The arrangement depicted in FIG. 3 provides two separate physical network paths from the physical switch network 318 to the host machine 302: the first path passes through the TOR switch 314 to the NVD 310 and then to the host machine 302, and the second path passes through the TOR switch 316 to the NVD 312 and then to the host machine 302. The separate paths provide enhanced availability (referred to as high availability) of the host machine 302. If a problem occurs in one of the paths (e.g., a link in one of the paths is broken) or a device (e.g., a particular NVD is not running), then the other path can be used for communication to / from the host machine 302.

[0104] exist Figure 3 In the configuration depicted in , the host machine is connected to two different NVDs using two different ports provided by the host machine's NIC. In other embodiments, the host machine may include multiple NICs that enable the host machine to connect to multiple NVDs.

[0105] Return to reference Figure 2NVD 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.

[0106] 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 an intelligent NIC with an onboard embedded processor. A smartNIC is a device that is independent of the NIC on the host machine. Figure 2 , NVDs 210 and 212 may be implemented as smartNICs connected to host machine 202 and host machines 206 and 208, respectively.

[0107] However, smartNIC is only one example of an NVD implementation. Various other implementations are possible. For example, in some other implementations, NVD or one or more functions performed by NVD can be incorporated into or performed by one or more host machines, one or more TOR switches, and other components of CSPI 200. For example, NVD can be implemented in a host machine, where the functions performed by NVD are performed by the host machine. As another example, NVD can be part of a TOR switch, or a TOR switch can be configured to perform functions performed by NVD, and NVD enables the TOR switch to perform various complex packet transformations for public clouds. TORs that perform the functions of NVD are sometimes referred to as smart TORs. In other implementations that provide virtual machine (VM) instances to customers instead of bare metal (BM) instances, the functions performed by NVD can be implemented inside the hypervisor of the host machine. In some other implementations, some of the functions of NVD can be offloaded to centralized services running on a group of host machines.

[0108] In some embodiments, such as when implemented as Figure 2 When using the smartNIC shown in FIG. 1 , the NVD may include multiple physical ports that enable it to connect to one or more host machines and one or more TOR switches. Ports on the NVD may be classified as host-facing ports (also referred to as "south ports") or network-facing or TOR-facing ports (also referred to as "north ports"). The host-facing ports of the NVD are the ports used to connect the NVD to the host machines. 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. 1 , 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.

[0109] NVD receives packets and frames (e.g., packets and frames generated by a compute instance hosted by the host machine) from a host machine via a host-facing port, and after performing necessary packet processing, may forward the packets and frames to a TOR switch via a network-facing port of NVD. NVD may receive packets and frames from a TOR switch via a network-facing port of NVD, and after performing necessary packet processing, may forward the packets and frames to a host machine via a host-facing port of NVD.

[0110] 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 aggregate 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 increase the bandwidth and reliability of the connection between the two endpoints. If one of the physical links in the LAG fails, the traffic will be dynamically and transparently reassigned to one of the other physical links in the LAG. 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 between 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 machine and the NVD, and so on.

[0111] 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) functionality; functions for facilitating routing and forwarding of packets to and from computing instances in the VCN; and the like. In some embodiments, upon receiving a packet, NVD is configured to execute a packet processing pipeline to process the packet and determine how to forward or route the packet. 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 computer 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 gateways), implementation of security lists, network security groups, network address translation (NAT) functionality (e.g., translating public IPs to private IPs on a host-by-host basis), throttling functions, and other functions.

[0112] In some embodiments, the packet processing data path in NVD may include multiple packet pipelines, each pipeline consisting of a series of packet transformation stages. In some embodiments, after receiving a packet, 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 either 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 built by combining existing stages, and new functionality can be added by creating new stages and inserting them into existing pipelines.

[0113] NVD can perform 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 Fig.12 , 13 , 14 and 15 (see reference numerals 1216, 1316, 1416) and described below. An example of a VCN data plane is shown in FIG. Fig.12 , 13, 14 and 15 (see reference numerals 1218, 1318, 1418 and 1518) and described below. The control plane functions include functions for configuring the network that controls how data is forwarded (e.g., setting 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 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 associated with the NVD. The data plane functions include functions for actually routing / forwarding packets based on the configuration set using the control plane. The VCN data plane is implemented by encapsulating the customer's network packets before they pass through the substrate network. The encapsulation / decapsulation functionality is implemented on the NVD. In some embodiments, the NVD is configured to intercept all network packets entering and leaving the host machine and perform network virtualization functions.

[0114] As indicated above, NVD performs various virtualization functions, including VNIC and VCN VR. NVD can execute VNICs associated with computing instances hosted by one or more host machines connected to the VNIC. For example, Figure 2 , NVD 210 executes functionality of VNIC 276 associated with compute instance 268 hosted by host machine 202 connected to NVD 210. As another example, NVD 212 executes VNIC 280 associated with bare metal compute instance 272 hosted by host machine 206, and executes VNIC 284 associated with compute instance 274 hosted by host machine 208. The host machines may host compute instances belonging to different VCNs (of different customers), and the NVD connected to the host machines may execute the VNICs corresponding to the compute instances (i.e., perform VNIC-related functionality).

[0115] 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 host machines 206 and 208 belong. In some embodiments, the VCN VR corresponding to the VCN is executed by all NVDs connected to the host machine hosting at least one compute instance belonging to the VCN. If the host machine hosts compute instances belonging to different VCNs, then the NVDs connected to the host machine can execute VCN VRs corresponding to those different VCNs.

[0116] In addition to the VNICs and VCN VRs, NVD may also 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 . For example, NVD 210 includes a packet processing component 286 and NVD 212 includes a packet processing component 288. For example, a packet processing component for 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 transmitted using NVD and store network information. Network information may, for example, include network flow information and per-flow information (e.g., per-flow statistics) that identify different network flows handled by NVD. In some embodiments, network flow information may be stored on a per-VNIC basis. The packet processor may perform per-packet manipulation 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 repositories. 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.

[0117] 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 represented by Figure 2 For example, a compute instance in a VCN can be executed or hosted by one or more of the physical components depicted in FIG. Figure 2 . For a compute instance hosted by a host machine, a VNIC associated with the compute instance is typically executed by an NVD connected to the host machine (i.e., VNIC functionality is provided by the NVD connected to the host machine). VCN VR functionality for a VCN is executed by all NVDs connected to the host machines that host or execute compute instances as part of the VCN. Gateways associated with a VCN may be executed by one or more different types of NVDs. For example, some gateways may be executed by smartNICs, while other gateways may be executed by one or more host machines or other implementations of NVDs.

[0118] 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 located outside the VCN of the source compute instance. These communications are facilitated using VNICs associated with the compute instances, VCN VRs, and gateways associated with the VCN.

[0119] For communication between two computing instances on the same subnet in a VCN, VNICs associated with the source and destination computing instances are used to facilitate communication. The source and destination computing instances can be hosted by the same host machine or different host machines. Packets originating from the source computing instance can be forwarded from the host machine hosting the source computing instance to the NVD connected to the host machine. On the NVD, the packet is processed using a packet processing pipeline, which can include the execution of the VNIC associated with the source computing instance. Since the destination endpoint for the packet is located in the same subnet, the execution of the VNIC associated with the source computing instance causes the packet to be forwarded to the NVD that executes the VNIC associated with the destination computing instance, and then the NVD processes the packet and forwards it to the destination computing instance. The VNICs associated with the source and destination computing instances can be executed on the same NVD (for example, when the source and destination computing instances are hosted by the same host machine) or on different NVDs (for example, when the source and destination computing instances are hosted by different host machines connected to different NVDs). The VNIC can use the routing table / forwarding table stored by the NVD to determine the next hop for the packet.

[0120] For packets to be transmitted from a compute instance in a subnet to an endpoint in a different subnet in the same VCN, packets originating from the source compute instance are transmitted from the host machine hosting the source compute instance to the NVD connected to the host machine. On the NVD, the packet is processed using a packet processing pipeline, which can 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 functionality corresponding to the VNIC associated with the source compute instance (also referred to as executing the VNIC). The functionality executed by the VNIC can include checking the VLAN tag on the packet. Since the destination of the packet is outside the subnet, the VCN VR functionality 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 can execute on the same NVD (e.g., when the source and destination compute instances are hosted by the same host machine) or on different NVDs (e.g., when the source and destination compute instances are hosted by different host machines connected to different NVDs).

[0121] If the destination for the packet is outside the VCN of the source compute instance, then the packet originating from the source compute instance is transmitted from the host machine hosting the source compute instance to the NVD connected to the host machine. 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 for the VCN. The NVD invokes VCN VR functionality, which causes 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, then 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, a host machine, or other NVD implementation. The packet is then processed by the gateway and forwarded to the next hop, which facilitates delivery of the packet to its intended destination endpoint. For example, in Figure 2 , a packet originating from compute instance 268 may be transmitted from host machine 202 to NVD 210 via link 220 (using NIC 232). On NVD 210, VNIC 276 is invoked because it is the VNIC associated with source compute instance 268. VNIC 276 is configured to inspect information encapsulated in the packet and determine a next hop for forwarding the packet with the intent of facilitating delivery of the packet to its intended destination endpoint, and then forward the packet to the determined next hop.

[0122] 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 the 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 dedicated network ( Figure 2 Executed by (not shown).

[0123] Figure 2The architecture of CSPI 200 depicted in the drawings is merely an example and is not intended to be limiting. In alternative embodiments, variations, alternatives, and modifications are possible. For example, in some embodiments, CSPI 200 may have a 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 can be 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 can be stored on a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., on a memory device).

[0124] Figure 4 Depicted is a connection between a host machine and an NVD for providing I / O virtualization to support multi-tenancy in accordance with certain embodiments. Figure 4 As depicted in , a host machine 402 executes a hypervisor 404 that provides a virtualized environment. The host machine 402 executes two virtual machine instances, VM1 406 belonging to customer / tenant #1 and VM2 408 belonging to customer / tenant #2. The host machine 402 includes a physical NIC 410 connected to an NVD 412 via a link 414. Each compute instance is attached to a VNIC executed by the 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 .

[0125] like Figure 4 As shown in FIG. 4 , NIC 410 includes two logical NICs, logical NIC A 416 and logical NIC B 418. Each virtual machine is attached to and 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 the host machine 402 includes only one physical NIC 410 shared by multiple tenants, each tenant's virtual machine believes that they have their own host machine and network card because of the logical NICs.

[0126] In some embodiments, each logical NIC is assigned its own VLAN ID. Thus, a particular VLAN ID is assigned to logical NIC A 416 for tenant #1, and a separate VLAN ID is assigned to logical NIC B 418 for tenant #2. When a packet is transmitted from VM1 406, a tag assigned to tenant #1 is appended to the packet by the hypervisor, and the packet is then transmitted from the host machine 402 to the NVD 412 over link 414. In a similar manner, when a packet is transmitted from VM2 408, a tag assigned to tenant #2 is appended to the packet by the hypervisor, and the packet is then transmitted from the host machine 402 to the NVD 412 over link 414. Thus, a packet 424 transmitted from the host machine 402 to the NVD 412 has an associated tag 426 that identifies the particular tenant and the associated VM. On the NVD, for a packet 424 received from the host machine 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 described in enables each tenant's compute instances to believe that they have their own host machine and NIC. Figure 4 The setup described in provides I / O virtualization to support multi-tenancy.

[0127] 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 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-layer switching network, where the number of stages or layers can be two, three, four, five, etc. Figure 5 The embodiment depicted in is a 3-layer network, including layers 1, 2, and 3. TOR switch 504 represents a layer 0 switch in a Clos network. One or more NVDs are connected to the TOR switch. The layer 0 switch is also called the edge device of the physical network. The layer 0 switch is connected to the layer 1 switch, also called the leaf switch. Figure 5In the embodiment depicted in , a set of "n" layer 0TOR switches are connected to a set of "n" layer 1 switches and form a pod. Each layer 0 switch in a pod is interconnected to all layer 1 switches in that pod, but there is no switch connectivity between pods. In some embodiments, two pods are referred to as blocks. Each block is served by or connected to a set 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). Communication of packets over the physical network 500 is 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, thus allowing high availability. Policies can be specified for pods and blocks to control the visibility of switches to each other in the physical network, thereby enabling scaling of the physical network.

[0128] A Clos network is characterized by a fixed maximum number of hops from one layer 0 switch to another layer 0 switch (or from an NVD connected to a layer 0 switch to another NVD connected to a layer 0 switch). For example, in a 3-layer Clos network, a packet takes at most seven hops to reach from one NVD to another NVD, where the source and destination NVDs are connected to the leaf layer of the Clos network. Similarly, in a 4-layer Clos network, a packet takes at most nine hops to reach from one NVD to another NVD, where the source and destination NVDs are connected to the leaf layer 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 is horizontally scalable and cost-effective. The bandwidth / throughput capacity of the network can be easily increased by adding more switches at various layers (e.g., more leaf switches and spine switches) and by increasing the number of links between switches in adjacent layers.

[0129] 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, for example, via the console or through an API. An example syntax for a CID is:

[0130] ocid1.<resource type>.<domain>.[region][.future use].<unique ID>

[0131] in,

[0132] ocid1: a text string indicating the version of the CID;

[0133] Resource Type: The type of resource (e.g., instance, volume, VCN, subnet, user, group, etc.);

[0134] Domain: The domain in which the resource resides. Example values ​​are "c1" for the commercial domain, "c2" for the government cloud domain, or "c3" for the federal government cloud domain. Each domain can have its own domain name;

[0135] Region: The region where the resource is located. This section may be empty if the region does not apply to the resource;

[0136] Future Use: Reserved for future use.

[0137] Unique ID: The unique portion of the ID. The format can vary depending on the type of resource or service.

[0138] Compiled rule generation and provisioning

[0139] Communications within a VCN are transmitted between VNICs via NVD. Specifically, a packet may be received by an NVD, which may then pass, forward, redirect and / or direct the packet to or toward a destination VNIC. The NVD utilizes information associated with the received packet and one or more rules to determine how to process the received packet. These rules are typically stored on each NVD so that when the NVD receives a packet, the NVD processes the packet based on the rules stored on that NVD. Although each of these rules is small in itself and does not take up significant memory, cumulatively, these rules can grow quite large. In some embodiments, the cumulative size of these rules can limit the number of VNICs on the NVD, thereby increasing the number of NVDs in the VCN. This increase in the number of NVDs in the VCN increases the complexity and cost associated with the increase in the amount of hardware used in the network.

[0140] The present disclosure relates to techniques, systems and methods for enabling increased VNIC density on an NVD. Specifically, this includes more efficiently utilizing memory on the NVD via limiting the number of rules stored on the NVD. This includes the creation of compiled rules that are associated with the processing of multiple different packets and / or flows. In some embodiments, the efficiency of rules installed on the NVD can be improved and / or optimized by making the rules installed on the NVD as general as possible, in other words, making each installed rule cover the maximum number of possible flows. Efficient rule packaging, or in other words, maximizing the applicability of rules, minimizes the number of rules required in the NVD.

[0141] This compiled rule can be created by identifying potential rules for each of a plurality of phases. The phases may include, for example, a routing phase, a security phase, a throttling phase, and a transformation phase. An intersection of potential rules for each of the plurality of phases is determined, and a compiled rule is formed from the intersection of the potential rules.

[0142] The routing phase includes information for resolving the next hop destination of the packet received by the NVD. This routing phase can be derived from, for example, customer routing rules, L2 forwarding within a VLAN, or L3 forwarding to a VNIC within a subnet and / or within a VCN. The security phase includes information for determining whether a packet is allowed. In some embodiments, the security phase may include, for example, one or more subnet security lists and / or network security groups that can be accessed to determine whether a packet is allowed. The throttling phase may include information for setting maximum and / or minimum delivery rates. The transformation phase may include information for performing any transformations and / or rewrites before delivering the packet. This may include information for performing network address translation (NAT), port address translation (PAT), resolution of MAC addresses, and the like.

[0143] By using compiled rules, the memory requirements for rules on the SmartNIC can be reduced. Specifically, typical applications include a single rule for each flow, and the compiled rules apply to multiple flows, thereby minimizing the total number of rules covering all potential flows for the network. In addition, the embodiments disclosed herein relate to providing a limited number of compiled rules to the SmartNIC. This limited number may cause the SmartNIC to not include rules that cover all potential flows within the network. In other words, a SmartNIC of this configuration will not have rules for all potential flows, but may have rules for a subset of all potential flows. In some embodiments, this subset may be a subset of the most frequently used rules, rules already used by the SmartNIC, and / or rules that the SmartNIC expects to use.

[0144] When the SmartNIC receives a packet to be processed, the SmartNIC determines whether it has an applicable rule. If the SmartNIC has an applicable rule, then the SmartNIC processes the packet. If the SmartNIC does not have an applicable rule, then the SmartNIC passes the packet to at least one server, which can be configured to process the packet. In some embodiments, the at least one server, which can include one or several servers and / or one or several server clusters, can include rules for all potential flows in the network.

[0145] At least one server receives a packet, identifies a rule for processing the packet, and then processes the packet according to the identified rule. The at least one server then forms a compiled rule that includes the rule for processing the packet. The formation of this compiled rule includes identifying potential rules for each of a plurality of stages of the rule, identifying intersections between the potential rules, and forming the compiled rule from the intersection of the potential rules. The compiled rule can then be provided to a smartNIC from which a packet for processing by the at least one server is received. In some embodiments, the compiled rule can be provided to a smartNIC from which a packet for processing by the at least one server is received, as well as to one or more similar smartNICs.

[0146] Figure 6 An embodiment of NVD 210 / 212 is depicted. NVD 210 / 212 includes packet processing components 286 / 288. These packet processing components 286 / 288 can be configured to process packets received by NVD 210 / 212, and specifically, the packet processor 602 of the packet processing component 286 / 288 can be configured to process packets received by NVD 210 / 212. The processing of received packets can include, for example, interacting with NVD 210 / 212 ports and hardware interfaces to monitor all packets received by NVD 210 / 212 and transmitted using NVD 210 / 212. In some embodiments, the processing of received packets can also include identifying one or more rules applicable to the received packets, and applying the one or more rules to the packets. In some embodiments, the processing of received packets can include sending the packets to the next hop and / or destination, such as to a destination VNIC.

[0147] The packet processing component 286 / 288 may also be configured to store network information, and in particular, the packet processing component 286 / 288 may include a rule memory 604, which may be configured to store network information. The network information may, for example, include network flow information and per-flow information (e.g., per-flow statistics) identifying different network flows handled by the NVD. In some embodiments, the network flow information may be stored on a per-VNIC basis. Based on this network information (which may include one or more rules, also referred to herein as configuration), the packet processing component 286 / 288 may process the received packets. In some embodiments, the rules stored by the rule memory 604 may include one or more rules related to routing, security, throttling, and / or packet transformation.

[0148] The packet processing component 286 / 288 can perform packet-by-packet manipulation, as well as implement stateful NAT and L4 firewall (FW). As another example, the packet processing component may include a replication agent 606 configured to replicate information stored by the NVD to one or more different replication target repositories. As another example, the packet processing component 286 / 288 may include a logging agent 608 configured to perform logging functions for the NVD 210 / 212. The packet processing component 286 / 288 may also include software (shown as a health monitor 610) for monitoring the performance and health of the NVD 210 / 212, and it is also possible to monitor the status and health of other components connected to the NVD 210 / 212.

[0149] Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of a system 700 for processing packets and generating and distributing compiled rules. The system 700 includes a server farm 702 that includes at least one instance, processor, computer, and / or server that communicates with a plurality of NVDs 210. In some embodiments, at least one processor, computer, and / or server in the server farm 702 may be located at a single location, or may be located at different locations. In some embodiments, the server farm 702 may be instantiated in physical hardware, and / or may be instantiated in software.

[0150] The server farm may include a VCN distribution service 704, a configuration storage farm 706, and a forwarding rule prefetch 708, also referred to herein as a prefetch service 708. Each of the VCN distribution service 704, the configuration storage farm 706, and the forwarding rule prefetch 708 may be instantiated on hardware, or may be instantiated in software. In some embodiments, each of the VCN distribution service 704, the configuration storage farm 706, and the forwarding rule prefetch 708 may be instantiated on different hardware (e.g., including one or more computers, processors, and / or servers).

[0151] In some embodiments, the VCN distribution server 704 may be configured to deliver low-level configuration elements to the NVD, configuration storage cluster 706, and / or forwarding rule prefetch 708. In some embodiments, this may include, for example, low-level configuration elements that may include rules applicable to a single flow and / or a single endpoint in a network, particularly a virtual network.

[0152] A rule may include, for example, a flow key, which may include a matching criterion. This matching criterion may be used to match a rule to a packet. For a rule to be identified as matching a packet, the matching criterion of the rule may be matched to an attribute of the packet, and specifically, may be matched to the matching criterion when the packet is received from a host port on a target endpoint. In some embodiments, the flow key may be generic so that a flow offload instruction may reference a "flow class" rather than a specific 5-tuple. The flow key may include, for example, a VNIC identifier, a protocol, source and destination CIDRs, and / or source and destination port ranges.

[0153] The rules may include a local security policy. The local security policy may indicate both ingress and egress security rules. In some embodiments, this may include indicating whether a stateful or stateless rule allows inbound and / or outbound packets. In some embodiments, if stateful, the local NVD may perform state tracking to allow inbound return packets.

[0154] Rules may include egress mapping overrides. Egress mapping overrides may indicate where to send packets and in some embodiments may override local mappings and / or routing rules.

[0155] The rules may include a remote security policy. The remote security policy may include one or more entries that may be stored and transmitted with any packets overwritten using a flow offload policy. In some embodiments, if the local security policy is stateful, and therefore, if a stateful security policy exists, the sender may include a local flow state. In some embodiments, the remote security policy may indicate a type of security rule to allow traffic, in particular, to allow processing of packets. In some embodiments, this rule may be, for example, stateful or stateless. In some embodiments, the remote security policy may include a reverse path forwarding (RPF) key. The RPF key may include a signature to authenticate which entity provided the overwrite instruction. The RPF key may be able to be traced back to the original intended sender that will match the local RPF check.

[0156] The rules may include packet transformation information. The packet transformation information may include instructions on how to modify the packet. These instructions may include, for example, instructions for NAT, PAT, etc.

[0157] The rules may include throttle selection information. In some embodiments, the throttle selection information may indicate and / or identify any classified throttle(s) to apply to the packet.

[0158] The rule may include information identifying a configuration version. In some embodiments, this configuration version may be used to determine whether the rule is still valid. In some embodiments, the rule should be checked to determine whether the rule is valid based on its version.

[0159] In some embodiments, if the rule is a prefetch rule, the rule may include information indicating that it is a prefetch rule. As used herein, a prefetch rule is a rule provided to the NVD before the NVD receives a packet that requires the use of the rule. In some embodiments, identifying a rule as a prefetch rule can be used to gather information to prioritize the rules based on actual traffic demand to avoid situations where unused rules, specifically unused prefetch rules, fill up available memory. In such embodiments, unused rules, specifically unused prefetch rules, can be evicted from the configuration cache first.

[0160] The configuration storage group 706, also referred to herein as the configuration storage service 706, can save configurations for a collection of VNICs. In some embodiments, the configuration storage group 706 can include configuration information, which can be one or more rules for a collection of VNICs, which in some embodiments can be located in at least one virtual network. In some embodiments, for example, the configuration storage group 706 can save configurations, or in other words, rules for delivering packets to some or all VNICs in a network, including, for example, availability domains (ADs). The configuration storage group 706 processes packets for NVDs that lack relevant configurations, or in other words, have no rules for processing those packets, and then installs those previously missing rules in the NVDs, thereby enabling those NVDs to process similar packets in the future. When these rules are installed on the NVDs, these rules can also be streamed to the prefetch group 708 so that the prefetch group 708 knows which rules are available for each VNIC.

[0161] The pre-fetch group 708 is configured to detect and install possible candidate forwarding rules on the NVD. This includes determining and / or predicting which rules may be applicable to the NVD, or in other words, determining and / or predicting which NVD(s) may need the rule.

[0162] Thus, in operation, when the NVD receives a packet, the receiving NVD can determine whether it has rules and / or configurations for processing the packet. If the NVD has rules and / or configurations, then the NVD can process the packet. If the NVD does not have rules and / or configurations, then the NVD can provide the packet to the server group 702, in particular the configuration storage group 706. The configuration storage service 706 can identify the rules for processing the packet and can process the packet. The configuration storage service 706 can also install the rules on the NVD. In some embodiments, the installation of the rules can include creating compiled rules, which can include information for processing multiple streams. The configuration storage service 706 can then notify the pre-fetch service 708 of the rules installed on the NVD. In some embodiments, this can result in different NVDs having different rules, and these rules can be related to the traffic passing through the NVD, thereby limiting the wasted space used to store unused rules.

[0163] Figure 8 800 for operating an NVD. This process 800 may be performed by some or all NVDs. Process 800 begins at block 802, where at least one rule is received at the NVD. In some embodiments, this rule may be provided by a server farm, and in particular may be provided by the VCN distribution server 704 and / or the configuration storage service 706. In some embodiments, this rule may be provided by the configuration storage service 706 when it is determined that the NVD does not have a rule and / or configuration for processing a packet received by the NVD.

[0164] In some embodiments, this rule may include compiled rules. The compiled rules may be applicable to a class of packets received by the NVD. In some embodiments, the compiled rules may be applicable to a class of packets received by the NVD for direct or indirect transmission to the VNIC. In some embodiments, the compiled rules may be received from, for example, a configuration storage group 706. In some embodiments, each of at least one rule received by the NVD may include a stream key, a security policy, and mapping information. In some embodiments, the security policy may include a local security policy and / or a remote security policy. In some embodiments, each of at least one rule may include packet transformation information and / or throttling information.

[0165] At block 804, a packet is received by the NVD. In some embodiments, this packet may be received by the NVD from another NVD and / or from an instance (such as, for example, a compute instance, a bare metal instance, etc.). In some embodiments, the packet may be received from another NVD and / or from an instance via an intermediate component (such as via, for example, a TOR switch). In some embodiments, this packet may be used for delivery to a VNIC. In some embodiments, such as when the VNIC is directly coupled to the NVD, the packet may be used for direct delivery to the VNIC. In some embodiments, the packet may be used for indirect delivery to the VNIC, such as when the NVD sends the packet to another component (such as, for example, another NVD) before delivering the packet to the VNIC.

[0166] The NVD receiving the packet may determine packet attributes, as indicated in block 806. For example, the attributes of the packet may include at least one of a source address, such as a source IP address and / or a source IP identifier, and a destination address, such as a destination IP address and / or a destination port identifier.

[0167] NVD evaluates the available rules based on the grouping attributes indicated in block 808. In some embodiments, this may include evaluating the available compiled rules based on the grouping attributes. This may include, for example, comparing the attributes of the grouping determined in block 806 to the available rules, and in particular to the stream key of each available rule. At decision step 810, it is determined whether there are available applicable rules. In some embodiments, it may be determined whether the available rules are applicable based on the results of the evaluation of block 808. In some embodiments, when the attributes of the grouping match the stream key of one of the available rules, it may be determined that the available rules are applicable.

[0168] If it is determined that at least one of the available rules is applicable, then process 800 proceeds to block 812, where the packet is processed according to the applicable rules. In some embodiments, the packet may be processed according to the applicable rules and / or at least one attribute of the packet. In some embodiments, this may include resolving routing, security, throttling, and transformation according to the applicable rules. After processing the packet, process 800 returns to block 804 when the next packet is received at the NVD, or returns to block 802 when the next rule is received at the NVD.

[0169] Returning again to decision step 810, if it is determined that no applicable rules exist, then process 800 proceeds to block 814 and forwards the packet to server farm 702 for processing. After forwarding the packet to server farm 702, process 800 returns to block 804 when the next packet is received at the NVD, or returns to block 802 when the next rule is received at the NVD.

[0170] Fig. 9 900 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of a process 900 for operating all or part of a server farm 702. In some embodiments, this may include packet processing by the server farm 702, generation of compiled rules by the server farm 702, and / or delivery of compiled rules to the NVD by the server farm 702. The process 900 begins at block 902, where one or more rules for packet processing are received and / or generated. In some embodiments, this may include, for example, the VCN distribution service 704 receiving one or more low-level rules, and / or the VCN distribution service 704 providing the low-level rules to the configuration storage farm 706.

[0171] At block 904, packets are received by server farm 702 and, in some embodiments, configuration storage farm 706. Packets may be received from NVD by server farm 702. In some embodiments, packets may include packets for which NVD has no applicable rules and / or packets for which NVD determines that no applicable rules exist.

[0172] The attributes of the packet may be determined as indicated in block 906. In some embodiments, these attributes of the packet may be determined by the server farm 702, and in particular, by the configuration storage farm 706. The attributes of the packet may include, for example, at least one of: a source address, such as a source IP address and / or a source IP identifier; and a destination address, such as a destination IP address and / or a destination port identifier.

[0173] At block 908, a rule for processing the packet received in block 904 is determined. In some embodiments, this rule may be determined by configuring storage group 706. In some embodiments, the rule may be determined by evaluating available rules based on packet attributes. These rules may be either compiled rules or uncompiled rules. In some embodiments, determining a rule for processing a packet may include determining a rule based on at least one attribute of the packet and information related to the rule and / or configuration.

[0174] In some embodiments, evaluating the available rules based on the packet attributes may include, for example, comparing the attributes of the packet determined in block 806 to the available rules, and in particular to the flow keys of each available rule. A rule having a flow key that matches the attributes of the packet may be identified and selected for processing the packet. In some embodiments, the rule for processing the second packet may be determined by the attributes of the packet, the attributes of the packet including at least one of: a destination address, which may be, for example, at least one of a destination IP address and / or a destination port identifier; and a source address, which may be, for example, at least one of a source IP address and / or a source port identifier.

[0175] At block 910, the packet is processed according to the applicable rules determined in block 908. In some embodiments, the packet may be processed according to the applicable rules and / or at least one attribute of the packet. In some embodiments, this may include addressing routing, security, throttling, and transformation according to the applicable rules.

[0176] At block 912, compiled rules including the rules determined in block 910 are generated and / or identified. In some embodiments, generating and / or identifying compiled rules may include, for example, identifying potential rules for each of a plurality of phases. In some embodiments, these phases may include, for example, a routing phase, a security phase, a throttling phase, and a transformation phase. In some embodiments, a plurality of phases may include, for example, two or more of a routing phase, a security phase, a throttling phase, and a transformation phase. In some embodiments, each potential rule is associated with a plurality of packet flows. In some embodiments, each of these potential rules may be the most general rule for its phase and include the rule determined in block 908.

[0177] The generation of compiled rules (also referred to herein as rule packaging) minimizes the table space of rules installed on the NVD. This is achieved by maximizing the coverage of each compiled rule installed on the NVD by maximizing the amount of the n-dimensional space of possible packet flows covered by the compiled rules. By maximizing the amount of coverage of the compiled rules, the number of rules required by the VNIC is reduced.

[0178] In some embodiments, identifying and / or generating compiled rules may include, for example, forming new compiled rules from the intersection between potential rules for each of the multiple stages of the flow. In some embodiments, identifying the intersection between potential rules for each of the multiple stages of the flow may result in identifying the most common rules common to all of the multiple stages. The compiled rules may be stored in the configuration storage group 706.

[0179] Rule packaging can be performed across multiple stages, including, for example, a routing stage, a security stage, a throttling stage, and a transformation stage. The routing stage can resolve the next hop destination of the packet. This can be performed based on, for example, customer routing rules, L2 forwarding within a VLAN, L3 forwarding to a VNIC and / or VCN within a subnet, etc. In some embodiments, the output of the routing stage can be an identifier of the next hop destination of the packet. In some embodiments, the output key CIDR, or in other words, the potential rules for the routing stage, is the maximum CIDR that matches the packet so that no more specific routes pointing to different destinations overlap with the potential rules.

[0180] In some embodiments, potential rules for the routing phase can be generated by a "longest prefix match" (LPM) algorithm. In some embodiments, this longest prefix match algorithm can be performed with a Trie tree, which can be a binary tree, where each node in the tree corresponds to a bit in the IP address of the packet. The root of the tree can correspond to the first bit in the destination address being considered. This algorithm will traverse to the child pointer based on the value of the current bit, that is, if the current bit is 0, then move to the left child node, and if the bit is 1, then move to the right child node. Nodes with matching routing rules are marked with a pointer to the next hop. LPM can be found by traversing the Trie tree until a node is reached, which has no more child nodes that match the packet (that is, the current bit is 0 and there is no left child node). The last matching routing rule above the termination point is the LPM.

[0181] In some embodiments, the LPM algorithm can be modified to generate and / or determine an output key for the routing phase. The algorithm can traverse the Trie tree until the LPM is found. After finding the LPM, the algorithm continues to follow the Trie to traverse the nodes of the LPM until the first terminal node is found. This first terminal node can be the terminal node closest to the LPM node in the Trie, or in other words, a leaf node. This first terminal node along the lookup address is then identified as the output key. In some embodiments, the algorithm can ignore nodes that have the same next hop as the current node.

[0182] Fig.10 An exemplary embodiment of the application of this modified LPM algorithm is shown in For IP address 10.1.1.1, and using the depicted Trie tree, 10.0.0.0 / 8 is the LPM, and the output key for 10.1.1.1 is 10.1.1.0 / 24.

[0183] The security stage determines whether delivery of the packet is allowed. This includes looking up the packet in one or more security lists, which may be subnet security lists and / or network security lists. In some embodiments, the packet is looked up in one or more security lists to determine whether the packet is allowed. The output of the security stage may be a determination and / or an indication of whether the packet is allowed or should be dropped. In some embodiments, the output key of the security stage is the largest block that matches the packet such that all other flows covered by the potential rule have the same security deployment.

[0184] In some embodiments, the selection of potential rules for the security phase can be performed via a binary decision diagram (BDD) algorithm. The BDD algorithm can provide fast lookup and powerful rule compression so that security rules can be quickly processed for each packet. In some embodiments, this can complicate the process of determining the amount of potential forwarding rules because information about individual rules that allow or deny packets is lost. In order to optimize rule packaging while minimizing the impact on BDD performance, some embodiments include an additional step of tracking rule fragments in the BDD calculation. In such embodiments, each fragment can correspond to the capacity of the space assigned to allow or deny. In some embodiments, such fragments provide optimal capacity for potential rules, while in some embodiments, such fragments provide suboptimal capacity for potential rules. Although such fragments may not provide optimal capacity, they provide capacity sufficient to produce efficient rule packaging.

[0185] In some embodiments, the BDD algorithm has two endpoints, for example, an endpoint for “allow” and an endpoint for “deny.” Although only these two nodes compress the BDD table, important information is lost due to this compression.

[0186] In some embodiments, the BDD algorithm can be compressed while retaining the desired information. In such embodiments, the rules are preprocessed to combine adjacent rules. In some embodiments, the rules can be preprocessed to combine any purely adjacent rules. For example, the 0 / 0 rule that allows source ports 300-400 to port 80 and the 0 / 0 rule that allows source ports 400-500 to port 80 can be combined to allow source ports 300-500 to port 80 0 / 0. The nodes at the edge of the graph can be evaluated to determine whether each node is an allowed node or a denied node. In some embodiments, an identifier can be associated with each node at the edge of the graph to indicate whether the node is an allowed node or a denied node. In some embodiments, this can include coloring the edge of the graph so that each allowed node is colored green and each denied node is colored red.

[0187] Each edge node of the BDD algorithm can be bound to a set of rules associated with the edge. In the case where an edge node is bound to multiple rules, one of the multiple rules can be selected as the "master rule" for the edge node. In some embodiments, the largest node among the multiple nodes can be selected as the master node. In some embodiments, the rule associated with the largest number of flows is the largest rule and can be designated as the master rule. In some embodiments, a new terminal node can be created for each master rule selected, after which BDD compression can continue.

[0188] Applying this compression reduces the compression capabilities of the BDD algorithm because it will use more nodes to track rule information, however, this compression enables each endpoint to be mapped to a contiguous region (defined by the master rule) that can be used to determine rule packing.

[0189] The throttling stage includes information related to throttling one or more packets. In some embodiments, this may include information for determining whether the data transmission rate of the packet is within allowed limits. In some embodiments, the security stage may be used to determine and / or identify one or more throttles to apply to the packet and / or forwarding rules applicable to the packet. In some embodiments, the output key of the throttling stage is the largest block of flows with the same set of throttling.

[0190] The transformation phase may include information to perform any desired and / or necessary rewrites before delivering the packet. This may include, for example, NAT that covers the packet, parsing MAC addresses, PAT, etc. when delivered to the host. In some embodiments, the transformation of the packet may be a function of the routing next hop and / or sender. In some embodiments, potential rules for the transformation phase may be formulated so that the same rewrite is required for all packets to which the potential rules apply. In some embodiments, such as for an egress stream, the output key for the transformation phase may be the same key as the output key for the potential routing phase rule. In such embodiments, the rewrite may be based on the routing destination. In some embodiments, such as for an inlet stream, the desired transformation may depend on the sender, and the output key may be limited to a specific VNIC or gateway that sends the packet.

[0191] At block 914, one or more NVDs are identified for receiving the compiled rules. The one or more NVDs may include the NVD from which the packet of block 904 was received. In some embodiments, the one or more NVDs may also include one or more NVDs similar to the NVD from which the packet of block 904 was received.

[0192] At block 916, the compiled rules from block 912 are provided to the one or more NVDs identified in block 914. In some embodiments, the compiled rules may be provided to the one or more NVDs by server farm 702, and in particular, configuration storage farm 706. In some embodiments, and as part of providing the compiled rules, configuration storage farm 706 may provide information, and in particular, may provide identification of the one or more NVDs that received the compiled rules, and may provide the compiled rules and / or identifiers of the compiled rules to prefetch farm 708. In some embodiments, prefetch farm 708 may update a database based on this information to identify which rules are available for each VNIC.

[0193] Example Embodiments of Packet Processing

[0194] In a first embodiment, one or more compiled rules may be received by the NVD from the server farm 702, as indicated in block 802. A first packet may be received by the NVD, as indicated in block 804, which may be for delivery to a first VNIC. Attributes of the first packet may be determined by the NVD, as indicated in block 806, and the NVD may determine and / or identify applicable rules based at least in part on the attributes of the first packet, as indicated in block 808 and decision step 810. The first packet may then be processed by the NVD according to the applicable rules, as indicated in block 812.

[0195] The second packet may be received by the NVD, as indicated in block 804, which may be for delivery to, for example, the second VNIC. The NVD may determine attributes of the second packet, as indicated in block 806, and may determine that the NVD does not contain or have a rule for processing the second packet, as indicated in block 808 and decision step 810. The NVD may then forward the second packet to the server farm 702, as indicated in block 814.

[0196] The second packet may be received by the server farm 702, as indicated in block 904, and the server farm 702 may determine attributes of the packet, as shown in block 906, and may determine rules for processing the packet, as indicated in block 908. The packet may be processed by the server farm 702, as indicated in block 910, and the server farm 702 may generate a compiled rule including the rule for processing the second packet. The server farm 702 may identify one or more NVDs for receiving the compiled rule, and may provide the compiled rule to that one or more NVDs. In some embodiments, the NVD from which the second packet is sent to the server farm 702 may receive the compiled rule. In some embodiments, one or more NVDs may be identified as being similar to the NVD from which the second packet is sent to the server farm 702, and the compiled rule may be sent to each of these similar NVDs.

[0197] Fig.11 A second embodiment of packet processing is described. Fig.11 As seen in FIG. 9 , after processing a packet, process 900 is performed. A packet is sent from VNIC A 1102 having a first IP address of 10.0.0.1 to VNIC B 1104 having a second IP address of 10.1.1.1. Each of VNICs 1102, 1104 includes a VNIC configuration 1106, 1108, each configuration corresponding to a rule. Each of these configurations includes rules for multiple stages, including a routing stage, a security stage, a throttling stage, and a translation (rewriting) stage.

[0198] Table 1 below shows the processing for VNIC A 1102. Specifically, Table 1 shows the VNIC configuration 1106 of VNIC A 1102 and describes the application of the configuration to packets sent from VNIC A 1102 to VNIC B 1104. The output keys of the VNIC configuration 1106 of VNIC A 1102 are: Output Keys: Source IP: 0.0.0.0 / 0 Destination IP: 10.1.1.1 / 32 Source Port: All Destination Port: 80

[0199]

[0200]

[0201] Table 1 depicts VNIC A's processing of egress packets from the host to the network. This includes the VNIC configuration of VNIC A.

[0202] Table 2 below shows the processing for VNIC B 1104. Specifically, Table 2 shows the VNIC configuration 1108 of VNIC B 1104 and describes the application of the configuration to packets received by VNIC B 1104 from VNIC A 1102. The output keys of the VNIC configuration 1108 of VNIC B 1104 are: Output Keys: Source IP: 10.0.0.1 / 32 Destination IP: 10.1.1.1 / 32 Source Port: All Destination Port: 80

[0203]

[0204]

[0205] Table 2 depicts VNIC B's processing of ingress packets from the network to the host. This includes the VNIC configuration of VNIC B.

[0206] Exemplary Embodiments

[0207] As noted 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), etc.). In some cases, IaaS providers can also provide various services to accompany those infrastructure components (e.g., billing, monitoring, logging, load balancing, and clustering, etc.). Therefore, since these services may be policy-driven, IaaS users may be able to implement policies to drive load balancing to maintain the availability and performance of applications.

[0208] 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 that 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, and more.

[0209] In most cases, the cloud computing model will require the involvement of a cloud provider. A cloud provider may, but need not, specialize in providing (e.g., provisioning, renting, selling) third-party IaaS services. An entity may also choose to deploy a private cloud, thereby becoming its own infrastructure service provider.

[0210] In some examples, IaaS deployment is the process of placing a new application or a new version of an application onto a prepared application server, etc. 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., that can be started on demand), etc.).

[0211] In some examples, IaaS provisioning can refer to obtaining computers or virtual hosts for use, and even installing required libraries or services on them. In most cases, deployment does not include provisioning, and provisioning may need to be performed first.

[0212] In some cases, there are two different challenges with IaaS provisioning. First, there is the initial challenge of provisioning the initial set of infrastructure before anything is running. Second, once 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 configuration that defines the infrastructure in a declarative manner. In other words, the infrastructure (e.g., which components are required and how they interact) can be defined by one or more configuration files. Therefore, the overall topology of the infrastructure (e.g., which resources depend on which resources, and how they work together) can be described in a declarative manner. In some cases, once the topology is defined, workflows can be generated to create and / or manage the different components described in the configuration files.

[0213] In some examples, the infrastructure can have many interconnected elements. For example, there may 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, one or more inbound / outbound traffic group rules and one or more virtual machines (VMs) for defining how the inbound / outbound traffic of the network will be set up can also be supplied. Other infrastructure elements, such as load balancers, databases, etc. can also be supplied. The infrastructure can evolve gradually as more and more infrastructure elements are desired and / or added.

[0214] 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 many different production environments (e.g., across various different geographic locations, sometimes across the world). However, in some examples, the infrastructure on which the code will be deployed must first be set up. In some cases, provisioning can be done manually, resources can be provisioned using a provisioning tool, and / or code can be deployed using a deployment tool once the infrastructure is provisioned.

[0215] Fig.12 1 is a block diagram 1200 illustrating an example schema of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1202 can be communicatively coupled to a secure host lease 1204 that can include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1206 and a secure host subnet 1208. In some examples, the service operator 1202 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 various mobile operating systems (such as iOS, Windows Phone, Android, BlackBerry 8, Palm OS, etc.), and supports 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, a computer running various versions of Microsoft Apple The client computing device may be a personal computer and / or laptop computer running various commercially available The client computing device may be a workstation computer running any of a variety of GNU / Linux operating systems (such as, for example, Google Chrome OS). Alternatively or additionally, the client computing device may be any other electronic device, such as a thin client computer, an Internet-enabled gaming system (e.g., with or without A Microsoft Xbox gaming console with a gesture input device), and / or a personal messaging device capable of communicating over a network that can access VCN 1206 and / or the Internet.

[0216] VCN 1206 may include a local peer gateway (LPG) 1210, which may be communicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 1212 via LPG 1210 contained in SSH VCN 1212. SSH VCN 1212 may include an SSH subnet 1214, and SSH VCN 1212 may be communicatively coupled to a control plane VCN 1216 via LPG 1210 contained in control plane VCN 1216. Furthermore, SSH VCN 1212 may be communicatively coupled to a data plane VCN 1218 via LPG 1210. Control plane VCN 1216 and data plane VCN 1218 may be contained in a service lease 1219, which may be owned and / or operated by an IaaS provider.

[0217] The control plane VCN 1216 may include a control plane demilitarized zone (DMZ) layer 1220 that acts as a perimeter network (e.g., a portion of a corporate network between a corporate intranet and an external network). DMZ-based servers may have limited liability and help control vulnerabilities. In addition, the DMZ layer 1220 may include one or more load balancer (LB) subnets 1222, a control plane application layer 1224 that may include (one or more) application subnets 1226, and a control plane data layer 1228 that may include (one or more) database (DB) subnets 1230 (e.g., (one or more) front-end DB subnets and / or (one or more) back-end DB subnets). The LB subnet(s) 1222 included in the control plane DMZ layer 1220 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1226 included in the control plane application layer 1224 and the Internet gateway 1234 that may be included in the control plane VCN 1216, and the application subnet(s) 1226 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1230 included in the control plane data layer 1228 and the service gateway 1236 and the network address translation (NAT) gateway 1238. The control plane VCN 1216 may include the service gateway 1236 and the NAT gateway 1238.

[0218] The control plane VCN 1216 may include a data plane mirror application layer 1240, which may include application subnet(s) 1226. The application subnet(s) 1226 included in the data plane mirror application layer 1240 may include a virtual network interface controller (VNIC) 1242 that may execute a compute instance 1244. The compute instance 1244 may communicatively couple the application subnet(s) 1226 of the data plane mirror application layer 1240 to the application subnet(s) 1226 that may be included in the data plane application layer 1246.

[0219] The data plane VCN 1218 may include a data plane application layer 1246, a data plane DMZ layer 1248, and a data plane data layer 1250. The data plane DMZ layer 1248 may include (one or more) LB subnets 1222, which may be communicatively coupled to (one or more) application subnets 1226 of the data plane application layer 1246 and an internet gateway 1234 of the data plane VCN 1218. The (one or more) application subnets 1226 may be communicatively coupled to a service gateway 1236 of the data plane VCN 1218 and a NAT gateway 1238 of the data plane VCN 1218. The data plane data layer 1250 may also include (one or more) DB subnets 1230, which may be communicatively coupled to (one or more) application subnets 1226 of the data plane application layer 1246.

[0220] The internet gateway 1234 of the control plane VCN 1216 and the data plane VCN 1218 may be communicatively coupled to the metadata management service 1252, which may be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1254. The public Internet 1254 may be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway 1238 of the control plane VCN 1216 and the data plane VCN 1218. The service gateway 1236 of the control plane VCN 1216 and the data plane VCN 1218 may be communicatively coupled to the cloud service 1256.

[0221] In some examples, service gateway 1236 of control plane VCN 1216 or data plane VCN 1218 can make application programming interface (API) calls to cloud services 1256 without going through public internet 1254. API calls from service gateway 1236 to cloud services 1256 can be one-way: service gateway 1236 can make API calls to cloud services 1256, and cloud services 1256 can send requested data to service gateway 1236. However, cloud services 1256 may not initiate API calls to service gateway 1236.

[0222] In some examples, secure host lease 1204 can be directly connected to service lease 1219, which can otherwise be isolated. Secure host subnet 1208 can communicate with SSH subnet 1214 through LPG 1210, which can enable two-way communication on otherwise isolated systems. Connecting secure host subnet 1208 to SSH subnet 1214 can enable secure host subnet 1208 to access other entities within service lease 1219.

[0223] The control plane VCN 1216 may allow a user of the service lease 1219 to set up or otherwise provision desired resources. The desired resources provisioned in the control plane VCN 1216 may be deployed or otherwise used in the data plane VCN 1218. In some examples, the control plane VCN 1216 may be isolated from the data plane VCN 1218, and the data plane mirror application layer 1240 of the control plane VCN 1216 may communicate with the data plane application layer 1246 of the data plane VCN 1218 via the VNIC 1242, which may be included in the data plane mirror application layer 1240 and the data plane application layer 1246.

[0224] In some examples, a user or customer of the system may make a request, such as a create, read, update, or delete (CRUD) operation, through the public internet 1254 which may transmit the request to the metadata management service 1252. The metadata management service 1252 may transmit the request to the control plane VCN 1216 through the internet gateway 1234. The request may be received by the LB subnet(s) 1222 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1220. The LB subnet(s) 1222 may determine that the request is valid, and in response to the determination, the LB subnet(s) 1222 may transmit the request to the application subnet(s) 1226 contained in the control plane application layer 1224. If the request is validated and a call to the public internet 1254 is required, the call to the public internet 1254 may be transmitted to the NAT gateway 1238 which may make the call to the public internet 1254. The storage that the request may desire to be stored may be stored in the DB subnet(s) 1230.

[0225] In some examples, data plane mirror application layer 1240 may facilitate direct communication between control plane VCN 1216 and data plane VCN 1218. For example, it may be desirable to apply changes, updates, or other appropriate modifications to the configuration to the resources contained in data plane VCN 1218. Control plane VCN 1216 may communicate directly with the resources contained in data plane VCN 1218 via VNIC 1242 and may thereby perform changes, updates, or other appropriate modifications to the configuration.

[0226] In some embodiments, control plane VCN 1216 and data plane VCN 1218 may be included in service lease 1219. In this case, a user or customer of the system may not own or operate control plane VCN 1216 or data plane VCN 1218. Alternatively, an IaaS provider may own or operate control plane VCN 1216 and data plane VCN 1218, both of which may be included in service lease 1219. This embodiment may enable isolation of networks, which may prevent a user or customer from interacting with the resources of other users or other customers. In addition, this embodiment may allow a user or customer of the system to store databases privately without relying on the public Internet 1254, which may not have the desired level of threat prevention, for storage.

[0227] In other embodiments, the LB subnet(s) 1222 contained in the control plane VCN 1216 can be configured to receive signals from the service gateway 1236. In this embodiment, the control plane VCN 1216 and the data plane VCN 1218 can be configured to be called by customers of the IaaS provider without calling the public Internet 1254. 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 the service lease 1219, which can be isolated from the public Internet 1254.

[0228] Fig.13 13 is a block diagram 1300 illustrating another example model of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1302 (e.g., Fig.12 The service operator 1202 of the embodiment may be communicatively coupled to the secure host lease 1304 (e.g., Fig.12 The secure host lease 1204 may include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1306 (e.g., Fig.12 VCN 1206) and secure host subnet 1308 (e.g., Fig.12 The VCN 1306 may include a local peer gateway (LPG) 1310 (e.g., Fig.12 1210 ), which may be communicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 1312 via an LPG 1210 contained in an SSH VCN 1312 (e.g., Fig.12 SSH VCN 1312). SSH VCN 1312 may include SSH subnet 1314 (e.g., Fig.12SSH subnet 1214 of the control plane VCN 1316), and SSH VCN 1312 can be communicatively coupled to control plane VCN 1316 via LPG 1310 contained in control plane VCN 1316 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane VCN 1216). The control plane VCN 1316 may be included in the service lease 1319 (e.g., Fig.12 service lease 1219), and the data plane VCN 1318 (e.g., Fig.12 The data plane VCN 1218) may be contained in a customer lease 1321 which may be owned or operated by a user or customer of the system.

[0229] The control plane VCN 1316 may include a control plane DMZ layer 1320 (e.g., Fig.12 , which may include (one or more) LB subnets 1322 (e.g., Fig.12 (one or more) LB subnets 1222), may include (one or more) application subnets 1326 (e.g., Fig.12 (one or more) application subnets 1226) of the control plane application layer 1324 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane application layer 1224 of FIG. 1224 may include (one or more) database (DB) subnets 1330 (e.g., similar to Fig.12 (one or more) DB subnets 1230) of the control plane data layer 1328 (e.g., Fig.12 1328). The LB subnet(s) 1322 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1320 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1326 contained in the control plane application layer 1324 and the internet gateway 1334 (e.g., Fig.12 1234), and the application subnet(s) 1326 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1330 and the service gateway 1336 (e.g., Fig.12 service gateway 1236) and a network address translation (NAT) gateway 1338 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane VCN 1316 may include a service gateway 1336 and a NAT gateway 1338.

[0230] The control plane VCN 1316 may include a data plane mirror application layer 1340 (e.g., Fig.12The data plane image application layer 1240). The (one or more) application subnets 1326 included in the data plane image application layer 1340 may include a computing instance 1344 (e.g., similar to Fig.12 The compute instance 1344 can facilitate the application subnet(s) 1326 of the data plane mirroring application layer 1340 and can include the application subnets 1326 of the data plane mirroring application layer 1346 (e.g., Fig.12 Communication between (one or more) application subnets 1326 in the data plane application layer 1246) via the VNIC 1342 contained in the data plane mirror application layer 1340 and the VNIC 1342 contained in the data plane application layer 1346.

[0231] The Internet gateway 1334 included in the control plane VCN 1316 can be communicatively coupled to the metadata management service 1352 (e.g., Fig.12 1352), which can be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1354 (e.g., Fig.12 The public Internet 1354 can be communicatively coupled to a NAT gateway 1338 included in the control plane VCN 1316. The service gateway 1336 included in the control plane VCN 1316 can be communicatively coupled to cloud services 1356 (e.g., Fig.12 Cloud service 1256).

[0232] In some examples, the data plane VCN 1318 may be contained in a customer lease 1321. In this case, the IaaS provider may provide a control plane VCN 1316 for each customer, and the IaaS provider may provision each customer with a unique compute instance 1344 contained in a service lease 1319. Each compute instance 1344 may allow communication between a control plane VCN 1316 contained in a service lease 1319 and a data plane VCN 1318 contained in a customer lease 1321. The compute instance 1344 may allow resources provisioned in a control plane VCN 1316 contained in a service lease 1319 to be deployed or otherwise used in a data plane VCN 1318 contained in a customer lease 1321.

[0233] In other examples, a customer of the IaaS provider may have a database that exists in the customer tenancy 1321. In this example, the control plane VCN 1316 may include a data plane mirror application layer 1340, which may include (one or more) application subnets 1326. The data plane mirror application layer 1340 may reside in the data plane VCN 1318, but the data plane mirror application layer 1340 may not be in the data plane VCN 1318. That is, the data plane mirror application layer 1340 may access the customer tenancy 1321, but the data plane mirror application layer 1340 may not exist in the data plane VCN 1318 or be owned or operated by the customer of the IaaS provider. The data plane mirror application layer 1340 may be configured to make calls to the data plane VCN 1318, but may not be configured to make calls to any entity contained in the control plane VCN 1316. A customer may desire to deploy or otherwise use resources provisioned in control plane VCN 1316 in data plane VCN 1318, and data plane mirror application layer 1340 may facilitate the customer's desired deployment or other use of resources.

[0234] In some embodiments, a customer of an IaaS provider may apply filters to the data plane VCN 1318. In this embodiment, the customer may determine what the data plane VCN 1318 may access, and the customer may restrict access to the public Internet 1354 from the data plane VCN 1318. The IaaS provider may not apply filters or otherwise control access to any external network or database by the data plane VCN 1318. The customer applying filters and controls to the data plane VCN 1318 contained in the customer lease 1321 may help isolate the data plane VCN 1318 from other customers and the public Internet 1354.

[0235] In some embodiments, cloud services 1356 may be called by service gateway 1336 to access services that may not exist on public Internet 1354, control plane VCN 1316, or data plane VCN 1318. The connection between cloud services 1356 and control plane VCN 1316 or data plane VCN 1318 may not be real-time or continuous. Cloud services 1356 may exist on different networks owned or operated by IaaS providers. Cloud services 1356 may be configured to receive calls from service gateway 1336 and may be configured not to receive calls from public Internet 1354. Some cloud services 1356 may be isolated from other cloud services 1356, and control plane VCN 1316 may be isolated from cloud services 1356 that may not be in the same region as control plane VCN 1316. For example, control plane VCN 1316 may be located in "Region 1", and cloud service "Deployment 24" may be located in Region 1 and "Region 2". If a service gateway 1336 contained in a control plane VCN 1316 located in region 1 makes a call to a deployment 12, the call may be transmitted to the deployment 12 in region 1. In this example, the control plane VCN 1316 or deployment 12 in region 1 may not be communicatively coupled or otherwise in communication with the deployment 12 in region 2.

[0236] Fig.14 1400 is a block diagram illustrating another example model of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1402 (e.g., Fig.12 The service operator 1202 may be communicatively coupled to the secure host lease 1404 (e.g., Fig.12 The secure host lease 1204 may include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1406 (e.g., Fig.12 VCN 1206) and secure host subnet 1408 (e.g., Fig.12 VCN 1406 may include LPG 1410 (e.g., Fig.12 1210), which may be communicatively coupled to the SSH VCN 1412 via the LPG 1410 contained in the SSH VCN 1412 (e.g., Fig.12 SSH VCN 1412 may include SSH subnet 1414 (e.g., Fig.12 SSH subnet 1214 of the control plane VCN 1416), and SSH VCN 1412 can be communicatively coupled to control plane VCN 1416 via LPG 1410 contained in control plane VCN 1416 (e.g., Fig.12The control plane VCN 1216 of FIG. 1414 is coupled to the data plane VCN 1418 via the LPG 1410 included in the data plane VCN 1418 (eg, Fig.12 The control plane VCN 1416 and the data plane VCN 1418 may be included in a service lease 1419 (e.g., Fig.12 Service lease 1219).

[0237] The control plane VCN 1416 may include a load balancer (LB) subnet 1422 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane DMZ layer 1420 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane DMZ layer 1220 may include (one or more) application subnets 1426 (e.g., similar to Fig.12 (one or more) application subnets 1226) of the control plane application layer 1424 (e.g., Fig.12 A control plane application layer 1224), a control plane data layer 1428 (eg, Fig.12 1428). The LB subnet(s) 1422 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1420 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1426 contained in the control plane application layer 1424 and the internet gateway 1434 (e.g., Fig.12 1434), and the application subnet(s) 1426 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1430 and the service gateway 1436 (e.g., Fig.12 Serving gateway) and network address translation (NAT) gateway 1438 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane VCN 1416 may include a service gateway 1436 and a NAT gateway 1438.

[0238] The data plane VCN 1418 may include a data plane application layer 1446 (e.g., Fig.12 Data plane application layer 1246), data plane DMZ layer 1448 (e.g., Fig.12 Data plane DMZ layer 1248), and data plane data layer 1450 (e.g., Fig.12The data plane DMZ layer 1448 may include (one or more) trusted application subnets 1460 and (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1462 that may be communicatively coupled to the data plane application layer 1446 and (one or more) LB subnets 1422 of the Internet gateway 1434 included in the data plane VCN 1418. The (one or more) trusted application subnets 1460 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1436 included in the data plane VCN 1418, the NAT gateway 1438 included in the data plane VCN 1418, and (one or more) DB subnets 1430 included in the data plane data layer 1450. The (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1462 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1436 included in the data plane VCN 1418 and (one or more) DB subnets 1430 included in the data plane data layer 1450. Data plane data layer 1450 may include DB subnet(s) 1430 that may be communicatively coupled to a service gateway 1436 included in data plane VCN 1418 .

[0239] Untrusted application subnet(s) 1462 may include one or more primary VNICs 1464(1)-(N) that may be communicatively coupled to tenant virtual machines (VMs) 1466(1)-(N). Each tenant VM 1466(1)-(N) may be communicatively coupled to a respective application subnet 1467(1)-(N) that may be contained in a respective container egress VCN 1468(1)-(N), which may be contained in a respective customer tenancy 1470(1)-(N). Respective secondary VNICs 1472(1)-(N) may facilitate communications between untrusted application subnet(s) 1462 contained in data plane VCN 1418 and application subnets contained in container egress VCNs 1468(1)-(N). Each container egress VCN 1468(1)-(N) may include a NAT gateway 1438 that may be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1454 (e.g., Fig.12 of the public Internet 1254).

[0240] An internet gateway 1434 included in control plane VCN 1416 and included in data plane VCN 1418 may be communicatively coupled to a metadata management service 1452 (e.g., Fig.121452), which can be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1454. The public Internet 1454 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway 1438 contained in the control plane VCN 1416 and contained in the data plane VCN 1418. The service gateway 1436 contained in the control plane VCN 1416 and contained in the data plane VCN 1418 can be communicatively coupled to the cloud service 1456.

[0241] In some embodiments, data plane VCN 1418 may be integrated with customer lease 1470. In some cases, such integration may 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 undesirable effects. In response to this, the IaaS provider may determine whether to run code given to the IaaS provider by the customer.

[0242] In some examples, a customer of an IaaS provider may grant temporary network access to the IaaS provider and request functionality attached to the data plane application layer 1446. Code running the functionality may be executed in a VM 1466(1)-(N), and the code may not be configured to run anywhere else on the data plane VCN 1418. Each VM 1466(1)-(N) may be connected to a customer lease 1470. The corresponding container 1471(1)-(N) contained in the VM 1466(1)-(N) may be configured to run the code. In this case, there may be double isolation (e.g., the container 1471(1)-(N) runs the code, where the container 1471(1)-(N) may be contained at least in the VM 1466(1)-(N) contained in the (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1462), which may help prevent incorrect or otherwise undesirable code from damaging the IaaS provider's network or damaging the network of a different customer. Containers 1471(1)-(N) may be communicatively coupled to customer lease 1470 and may be configured to transmit or receive data from customer lease 1470. Containers 1471(1)-(N) may not be configured to transmit or receive data from any other entity in data plane VCN 1418. After running the code is complete, the IaaS provider may terminate or otherwise dispose of containers 1471(1)-(N).

[0243] In some embodiments, the trusted application subnet(s) 1460 may run code that may be owned or operated by the IaaS provider. In this embodiment, the trusted application subnet(s) 1460 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1430 and configured to perform CRUD operations in the DB subnet(s) 1430. The untrusted application subnet(s) 1462 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1430, but in this embodiment, the untrusted application subnet(s) may be configured to perform read operations in the DB subnet(s) 1430. The containers 1471(1)-(N) that may be included in each customer's VM 1466(1)-(N) and that may run code from the customer may not be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1430.

[0244] In other embodiments, the control plane VCN 1416 and the data plane VCN 1418 may not be directly communicatively coupled. In this embodiment, there may be no direct communication between the control plane VCN 1416 and the data plane VCN 1418. However, communication may occur indirectly through at least one method. The LPG 1410 may be established by an IaaS provider, which may facilitate communication between the control plane VCN 1416 and the data plane VCN 1418. In another example, the control plane VCN 1416 or the data plane VCN 1418 may call the cloud service 1456 via the service gateway 1436. For example, the call from the control plane VCN 1416 to the cloud service 1456 may include a request for a service that can communicate with the data plane VCN 1418.

[0245] Fig.15 1500 is a block diagram illustrating another example model of an IaaS architecture according to at least one embodiment. A service operator 1502 (e.g., Fig.12 The service operator 1202 of the embodiment may be communicatively coupled to the secure host lease 1504 (e.g., Fig.12 The secure host lease 1204 may include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1506 (e.g., Fig.12 VCN 1206) and secure host subnet 1508 (e.g., Fig.12 VCN 1506 may include LPG 1510 (e.g., Fig.12 1210), which may be accessed via an LPG 1510 contained in an SSH VCN 1512 (e.g., Fig.12LPG 1510 in SSH VCN 1512 of the present invention is communicatively coupled to SSH VCN 1512. SSH VCN 1512 may include SSH subnet 1514 (e.g., Fig.12 SSH subnet 1214 of the control plane VCN 1514), and SSH VCN 1512 can be communicatively coupled to control plane VCN 1516 via LPG 1510 contained in control plane VCN 1516 (e.g., Fig.12 1516) and is coupled to the data plane VCN 1518 via the LPG 1510 included in the data plane VCN 1518 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane VCN 1516 and the data plane VCN 1518 may be included in a service lease 1519 (e.g., Fig.12 Service lease 1219).

[0246] The control plane VCN 1516 may include (one or more) LB subnets 1522 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane DMZ layer 1520 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane DMZ layer 1220 may include (one or more) application subnets 1526 (e.g., Fig.12 (one or more) application subnets 1226) of the control plane application layer 1524 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane application layer 1224 of FIG. 1224 may include (one or more) DB subnets 1530 (e.g., Fig.14 (one or more) DB subnets 1430) of the control plane data layer 1528 (e.g., Fig.12 1528). The LB subnet(s) 1522 contained in the control plane DMZ layer 1520 may be communicatively coupled to the application subnet(s) 1526 contained in the control plane application layer 1524 and the internet gateway 1534 (e.g., Fig.12 1234), and the application subnet(s) 1526 may be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1530 and the service gateway 1536 (e.g., Fig.12 ) and a network address translation (NAT) gateway 1538 (e.g., Fig.12 The control plane VCN 1516 may include a service gateway 1536 and a NAT gateway 1538.

[0247] The data plane VCN 1518 may include a data plane application layer 1546 (e.g., Fig.12 Data plane application layer 1246), data plane DMZ layer 1548 (e.g., Fig.12 Data plane DMZ layer 1248)), and data plane data layer 1550 (e.g., Fig.12 The data plane DMZ layer 1548 may include (one or more) trusted application subnets 1560 (e.g., Fig.14 (one or more) trusted application subnets 1460) and (one or more) untrusted application subnets 1562 (e.g., Fig.14 The trusted application subnet(s) 1560 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1536 contained in the data plane VCN 1518, the NAT gateway 1538 contained in the data plane VCN 1518, and the DB subnet(s) 1530 contained in the data plane data layer 1550. The untrusted application subnet(s) 1562 may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1536 contained in the data plane VCN 1518 and the DB subnet(s) 1530 contained in the data plane data layer 1550. The data plane data layer 1550 may include the DB subnet(s) 1530 that may be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1536 contained in the data plane VCN 1518.

[0248] The untrusted application subnet(s) 1562 may include primary VNICs 1564(1)-(N) that may be communicatively coupled to tenant virtual machines (VMs) 1566(1)-(N) residing within the untrusted application subnet(s) 1562. Each tenant VM 1566(1)-(N) may run code in a corresponding container 1567(1)-(N) and may be communicatively coupled to an application subnet 1526 that may be contained in a data plane application layer 1546 contained in a container egress VCN 1568. Corresponding secondary VNICs 1572(1)-(N) may facilitate communications between the untrusted application subnet(s) 1562 contained in the data plane VCN 1518 and the application subnets contained in the container egress VCN 1568. The container egress VCN may include a primary VNIC that may be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1554 (e.g., Fig.12 NAT gateway 1538 of the public Internet 1254).

[0249] The Internet gateway 1534 included in the control plane VCN 1516 and included in the data plane VCN 1518 can be communicatively coupled to the metadata management service 1552 (e.g., Fig.12 15), which can be communicatively coupled to the public Internet 1554. The public Internet 1554 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway 1538 contained in the control plane VCN 1516 and contained in the data plane VCN 1518. The service gateway 1536 contained in the control plane VCN 1516 and contained in the data plane VCN 1518 can be communicatively coupled to the cloud service 1556.

[0250] In some examples, Fig.15 The architecture model shown in block diagram 1500 can be considered as Fig.14 1400 , and may be desired by customers of the IaaS provider if the IaaS provider cannot communicate directly with the customer (e.g., in a disconnected region). The customer may access the corresponding container 1567(1)-(N) contained in each customer's VM 1566(1)-(N) in real time. The container 1567(1)-(N) may be configured to make calls to the corresponding secondary VNIC 1572(1)-(N) contained in the (one or more) application subnets 1526 of the data plane application layer 1546, which may be contained in the container egress VCN 1568. The secondary VNIC 1572(1)-(N) may transmit the call to the NAT gateway 1538, which may transmit the call to the public Internet 1554. In this example, containers 1567(1)-(N), which may be accessed by customers in real time, may be isolated from control plane VCN 1516 and may be isolated from other entities contained in data plane VCN 1518. Containers 1567(1)-(N) may also be isolated from resources from other customers.

[0251] In other examples, a customer may use containers 1567(1)-(N) to call cloud service 1556. In this example, a customer may run code in containers 1567(1)-(N) to request a service from cloud service 1556. Containers 1567(1)-(N) may transmit the request to secondary VNICs 1572(1)-(N), which may transmit the request to a NAT gateway, which may transmit the request to public Internet 1554. Public Internet 1554 may transmit the request to LB subnet(s) 1522 contained in control plane VCN 1516 via Internet gateway 1534. In response to determining that the request is valid, LB subnet(s) may transmit the request to application subnet(s) 1526, which may transmit the request to cloud service 1556 via service gateway 1536.

[0252] It should be appreciated that the IaaS architectures 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 depicted in the various figures may have other components than those depicted. In addition, the embodiments shown in the various figures are merely some examples of cloud infrastructure systems that may 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 various figures, may combine two or more components, or may have a different configuration or component arrangement.

[0253] In certain embodiments, the IaaS system described herein may include application suites, 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 assignee.

[0254] Fig.16 An example computer system 1600 is illustrated in which various embodiments may be implemented. System 1600 may be used to implement any of the computer systems described above. As shown, computer system 1600 includes a processing unit 1604 that communicates with a plurality of peripheral subsystems via a bus subsystem 1602. These peripheral subsystems may include a processing acceleration unit 1606, an I / O subsystem 1608, a storage subsystem 1618, and a communication subsystem 1624. Storage subsystem 1618 includes a tangible computer-readable storage medium 1622 and a system memory 1610.

[0255] Bus subsystem 1602 provides a mechanism for allowing various components and subsystems of computer system 1600 to communicate with each other by intention. Although bus subsystem 1602 is schematically shown as a single bus, alternative embodiments of bus subsystem can utilize multiple buses. Bus subsystem 1602 can be any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any various bus architectures. For example, this architecture can include an industrial 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, which can be implemented as a Mezzanine bus manufactured by the IEEE P1386.1 standard.

[0256] The processing unit 1604, which may be implemented as one or more integrated circuits (e.g., conventional microprocessors or microcontrollers), controls the operation of the computer system 1600. One or more processors may be included in the processing unit 1604. These processors may include single-core or multi-core processors. In certain embodiments, the processing unit 1604 may be implemented as one or more independent processing units 1632 and / or 1634, wherein a single-core or multi-core processor is included in each processing unit. In other embodiments, the processing unit 1604 may also be implemented as a quad-core processing unit formed by integrating two dual-core processors into a single chip.

[0257] In various embodiments, the processing unit 1604 can execute various programs in response to the 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 1604 and / or in the storage subsystem 1618. Through appropriate programming, (one or more) processors 1604 can provide the various functions described above. The computer system 1600 may additionally include a processing acceleration unit 1606, which may include a digital signal processor (DSP), a special processor, and the like.

[0258] I / O subsystem 1608 may include user interface input devices and user interface output devices. User interface input devices may include a keyboard, a pointing device such as a mouse or trackball, a touch pad or touch screen incorporated into a display, a scroll wheel, a click wheel, a dial, buttons, switches, a keyboard, an audio input device with a voice command recognition system, a microphone, and other types of input devices. User interface input devices may include, for example, motion sensing and / or gesture recognition devices such as Microsoft Motion sensors that enable users to control apps such as Microsoft 360 game controller. The user interface input device may also include an eye gesture recognition device, such as detecting eye activity from the user (e.g., a "wink" when taking a picture and / or making a menu selection) and translating eye gestures to the input device (e.g., Google ) in Google In addition, the user interface input device may include a user interface that enables the user to communicate with the voice recognition system (e.g., Navigator) interactive voice recognition sensing device.

[0259] The user interface input device may also include, but is not limited to, a three-dimensional (3D) mouse, a joystick or pointing stick, a game panel and a drawing board, and 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 a sight 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.

[0260] The user interface output devices 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 using 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 1600 to a user or other computers. For example, the user interface output devices may include, but are not limited to, various display devices that visually convey text, graphics, and audio / video information, such as monitors, printers, speakers, headphones, car navigation systems, plotters, voice output devices, and modems.

[0261] Computer system 1600 may include a storage subsystem 1618 containing software elements, shown currently located in system memory 1610. System memory 1610 may store program instructions that may be loaded and executed on processing unit 1604, as well as data generated during execution of these programs.

[0262] Depending on the configuration and type of computer system 1600, system memory 1610 may be volatile (such as random access memory (RAM)) and / or non-volatile (such as read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, etc.). RAM typically contains data and / or program modules that are immediately accessible to and / or currently being operated and executed by processing unit 1604. In some implementations, system memory 1610 may include a variety of different types of memory, such as static random access memory (SRAM) or dynamic random access memory (DRAM). In some implementations, a basic input / output system (BIOS), which contains basic routines that help transfer information between elements of computer system 1600, such as during startup, may typically be stored in ROM. By way of example, and not limitation, system memory 1610 also illustrates application programs 1612, which may include client applications, web browsers, middle-tier applications, relational database management systems (RDBMS), etc., program data 1614, and an operating system 1616. By way of example, operating system 1616 may include various versions of Microsoft Apple and / or Linux operating systems, various commercially available or UNIX-like operating systems (including but not limited to various GNU / Linux operating systems, Google operating system, etc.) and / or such as iOS, Phone, OS, OS and OS operating system's mobile operating system.

[0263] Storage subsystem 1618 may also provide a tangible computer-readable storage medium for storing basic programming and data structures that provide the functionality of some embodiments. Software (programs, code modules, instructions) that provide the above-described functionality when executed by the processor may be stored in storage subsystem 1618. These software modules or instructions may be executed by processing unit 1604. Storage subsystem 1618 may also provide a repository for storing data used in accordance with the present disclosure.

[0264] Storage subsystem 1600 may also include a computer-readable storage media reader 1620, which may be further connected to computer-readable storage media 1622. Together with system memory 1610 and, optionally, in conjunction therewith, computer-readable storage media 1622 may comprehensively represent remote, local, fixed, and / or removable storage devices plus storage media for temporarily and / or more permanently containing, storing, transmitting, and retrieving computer-readable information.

[0265] The computer-readable storage medium 1622 containing the code or portions of the code may also 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 storage and / or transmission of information. This may include tangible computer-readable storage media, such as RAM, ROM, electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disk (DVD) or other optical storage, cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or other tangible computer-readable media. This may also include non-tangible computer-readable media, such as data signals, data transmissions, or any other media that can be used to transmit the desired information and can be accessed by the computing system 1600.

[0266] By way of example, computer-readable storage media 1622 may include a hard 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 optical drives). Computer readable storage media 1622 may include, but are not limited to, The computer readable storage medium 1622 may include a solid-state drive (SSD) based on non-volatile memory (such as a flash memory-based SSD, an enterprise flash drive, a solid-state ROM, etc.), a volatile memory-based SSD (such as a solid-state RAM, a dynamic RAM, a static RAM), a DRAM-based SSD, a magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) SSD, and a hybrid SSD using a combination of DRAM and flash memory-based SSDs. The disk drive and its associated computer-readable media may provide non-volatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, and other data for the computer system 1600.

[0267] The communication subsystem 1624 provides an interface to other computer systems and networks. The communication subsystem 1624 is used as an interface for receiving data from other systems and sending data from the computer system 1600 to other systems. For example, the communication subsystem 1624 can enable the computer system 1600 to be connected to one or more devices via the Internet. In some embodiments, the communication subsystem 1624 may include a radio frequency (RF) transceiver component 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 Rates for Global Evolution), WiFi (IEEE 802.11 series standards), or other mobile communication technologies, or any combination thereof), a global positioning system (GPS) receiver component and / or other components. In some embodiments, as an addition or replacement of a wireless interface, the communication subsystem 1624 can provide a wired network connection (e.g., Ethernet).

[0268] In some embodiments, communication subsystem 1624 may also receive incoming communications in the form of structured and / or unstructured data feeds 1626 , event streams 1628 , event updates 1630 , and the like on behalf of one or more users who may use computer system 1600 .

[0269] For example, the communication subsystem 1624 may be configured to receive data feeds 1626 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.

[0270] Additionally, the communication subsystem 1624 may also be configured to receive data in the form of a continuous data stream, which may include event streams 1628 and / or event updates 1630, which may be continuous or unbounded in nature, real-time events without explicit termination. Examples of applications that generate continuous data may include, for example, sensor data applications, financial quote machines, network performance measurement tools (e.g., network monitoring and traffic management applications), clickstream analysis tools, automotive traffic monitoring, and the like.

[0271] The communication subsystem 1624 may also be configured to output structured and / or unstructured data feeds 1626 , event streams 1628 , event updates 1630 , 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 1600 .

[0272] Computer system 1600 may be one of various types, including a handheld portable device (e.g., Cellular phone, computing tablets, PDAs), wearable devices (e.g. Glass head mounted display), PC, workstation, mainframe, kiosk, server rack, or any other data processing system.

[0273] Due to the ever-changing nature of computers and networks, the description of the computer system 1600 depicted in the figure is intended only as a specific example. Many other configurations with more or fewer components than the system depicted in the figure are possible. For example, customized hardware may also be used and / or specific elements may be implemented with hardware, firmware, software (including applets) or a combination thereof. In addition, connections to other computing devices such as network input / output devices may also be employed. Based on the disclosure and teachings provided herein, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize other ways and / or methods of implementing various embodiments.

[0274] Although specific embodiments have been described, various modifications, variations, alternative constructions, and equivalents are also included within the scope of this disclosure. Embodiments are not limited to operating within certain specific data processing environments, but can be freely operated within multiple data processing environments. In addition, although embodiments have been described using a specific series of transactions and steps, it should be clear to those skilled in the art that the scope of this 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.

[0275] In addition, although embodiments have been described using specific combinations of hardware and software, it should be appreciated that other combinations of hardware and software are also within the scope of the present disclosure. Embodiments may be implemented using only hardware, or only software, or using a combination thereof. The various processes described herein may be implemented in any combination on the same processor or on different processors. Thus, where a component or module is described as being configured to perform certain operations, such configuration may be accomplished by, for example, 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. Processes may communicate using a variety of techniques, including but not limited to conventional techniques for inter-process communication, and different pairs of processes may use different techniques, or the same pair of processes may use different techniques at different times.

[0276] The description and drawings are therefore to be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive. However, additions, subtractions, deletions and other modifications and changes may be made without departing from the broader spirit and scope set forth in the claims. Therefore, although specific disclosed embodiments have been described, these are not intended to be limiting. Various modifications and equivalent forms are within the scope of the following claims.

[0277] The use of the terms "one" and "an" and "the" and similar references in the context of describing the disclosed embodiments (especially in the context of the following claims) is to be interpreted as covering the singular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearly contradicted by the context. Unless otherwise stated, the terms "include", "have", "include (including)" and "include (containing)" are to be interpreted as open terms (i.e., meaning "including but not limited to"). The term "connected" should be interpreted as being partially or completely contained in, attached to or connected together, even if there is something in the middle. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the enumeration of the value range herein is intended only to be used as a shorthand method of individually referencing each individual value falling within the range, and each individual value is incorporated into the specification as if it were individually listed herein. Unless otherwise indicated herein or clearly contradicted by the context, all methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order. The use of any and all examples or exemplary language (e.g., "such as") provided herein is intended only to better illustrate the embodiments and is not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure, unless otherwise stated. No language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element as essential to the practice of the disclosure.

[0278] Disjunctive language, such as the phrase "at least one of X, Y, or Z," is intended to be understood in the context generally used to indicate that an item, term, or the like, can be X, Y, or Z, or any combination thereof (e.g., X, Y, and / or Z), unless expressly stated otherwise. 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.

[0279] Preferred embodiments of the present disclosure are described herein, including the best mode known for implementing the present disclosure. Variations of those preferred embodiments will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the above description. Those of ordinary skill should be able to appropriately adopt such variations and may practice the present disclosure in a manner different from that specifically described herein. Thus, the present disclosure includes all modifications and equivalent forms of the subject matter recorded in the appended claims where permitted by applicable law. In addition, unless otherwise indicated herein, the present disclosure includes any combination of the above-mentioned elements in all possible variations thereof.

[0280] All references, including publications, patent applications, and patents, cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each reference was individually and specifically indicated to be incorporated by reference and were set forth in its entirety herein.

[0281] In the foregoing description, various aspects of the present disclosure are described with reference to their specific embodiments, but it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Each feature and aspect disclosed above can be used alone or in combination. In addition, without departing from the broader spirit and scope of this specification, the embodiments can be used in any number of environments and applications other than those described herein. Thus, this specification and the accompanying drawings should be considered illustrative rather than restrictive.

Claims

1. A method comprising: receiving at a first network virtualization device ("NVD") at least one compiled rule, each of the at least one compiled rule applicable to a class of packets received by the first NVD for delivery to a virtualized network interface card ("VNIC"); receiving, at a first NVD, a first packet for delivery to a first VNIC; determining, using a first NVD, that a first rule of the at least one compiled rule is applicable to the first group; as well as The first packet is processed using the first NVD according to the first rule. 2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first packet is processed according to a first rule and according to at least one attribute of the first packet.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one attribute of the packet comprises at least one of: a destination address, and a source address.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the source address comprises at least one of: a source IP address; and a source port identifier.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the destination address comprises at least one of: a destination IP address; and a destination port identifier.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the at least one compiled rule comprises: Stream key; Security policy; and mapping information.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the security policy comprises: Local security policy; and remote security policies.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein each of the at least one compiled rule further comprises: Packet transformation information; and throttling information.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the first NVD, a second packet for delivery to the second VNIC; Determining, using the first NVD, that the first NVD does not have a rule for processing the second packet; as well as The second packet is forwarded to at least one server, wherein the at least one server is configured to process the second packet.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the at least one server includes configuration information for a set of VNICs in at least one virtual network.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising: determining, with the at least one server, a rule for processing the second packet, wherein the rule is determined based on the configuration information and at least one attribute of the second packet; as well as The second packet is processed by the at least one server according to the determined rule.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one attribute of the packet comprises at least one of: a destination address, and a source address.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the source address comprises at least one of: a source IP address; and a source port identifier.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the destination address comprises at least one of: a destination IP address; and a destination port identifier.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising: Generate a new compiled rule, the new compiled rule including the second rule, wherein generating the new compiled rule includes: identifying potential rules for each of a plurality of stages, wherein each of the potential rules is associated with a plurality of packet flows; and forming the new compiled rules from an intersection of potential rules for each of the plurality of stages of the flow; and The new compiled rules are provided to the first NVD.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising: identifying multiple NVDs as being similar to a first NVD; and providing the new compiled rules to the plurality of NVDs similar to the first NVD.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the plurality of phases comprises two or more of: a routing phase; a security phase; a throttling phase; and a transformation phase.

18. A system comprising: at least one server comprising a plurality of compiled rules; and A first network virtualization device ("NVD"), wherein the NVD is configured to: receiving at least one compiled rule, wherein each compiled rule of the at least one compiled rule applies to a class of packets received by a first NVD for delivery to a virtualized network interface card ("VNIC"); receiving a first packet for delivery to a first VNIC; determining that a first rule of the at least one compiled rule is applicable to a first group; as well as The first packet is processed according to a first rule.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the first NVD is further configured to: receiving a second packet for delivery to a second VNIC; determining that the first NVD does not have a rule for processing the second packet; and forwarding the second packet to the at least one server, wherein the at least one server comprises configuration information for a set of VNICs in at least one virtual network, and wherein the at least one server is configured to: determining a rule for processing the second packet, wherein the rule is determined based on the configuration information and at least one attribute of the second packet; and The second packet is processed according to the determined rule.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a plurality of instructions executable by one or more processors of a first network virtualization device ("NVD"), the plurality of instructions, when executed by the one or more processors of the first NVD, causing the one or more processors of the first NVD to: receiving at least one compiled rule, wherein each compiled rule of the at least one compiled rule applies to a class of packets received by a first NVD for delivery to a virtualized network interface card ("VNIC"); receiving a first packet for delivery to a first VNIC; determining that a first rule of the at least one compiled rule is applicable to a first group; as well as The first packet is processed according to a first rule.

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