Overlay Addressing with Routing Domains for Million-Endpoint Networks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing overlay addressing schemes in virtual networks face limitations in scalability and throughput due to size-limited routing tables and encapsulation methods, which are inadequate for highly scalable and throughput-sensitive applications.
Innovation Solution
A highly scalable overlay addressing scheme is implemented by partitioning the virtual network into multiple routing domains, assigning unique subsets of overlay addresses to virtual machines within each domain, and using these addresses for intra-domain communications while prohibiting inter-domain communications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If routing tables are used to map overlay addresses to host virtual machine IP addresses, then container-to-container communication is enabled, but the number of supported nodes is limited to a maximum of 400 due to routing table size constraints
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the virtual network into multiple virtual network clouds, each with its own routing table. This segmentation allows the system to support more nodes than a single routing table could handle, as each cloud's routing table only needs to manage a subset of the total nodes. The overlay address scheme enables routing between clouds without requiring a single large routing table.
2Adaptability or versatility
If encapsulation is used to forward packets between virtual machines, then network address translation is achieved, but throughput is reduced due to the compute power required for encapsulating and unwrapping messages
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the address translation function from the packet forwarding path. Instead of encapsulating and unwrapping packets at each hop, the overlay address is translated once at the cloud boundary using a mapping table. This extraction eliminates the repeated encapsulation/decapsulation overhead while maintaining address translation capability.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a single routing table is used to support all containers in the virtual network, then comprehensive routing is achieved, but the system cannot scale to support hundreds or thousands of nodes deploying millions of containers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a new dimension to the routing architecture by creating a hierarchy of routing domains (virtual network clouds). Instead of a flat single routing table, the system uses multiple layered routing tables organized in a tree structure, where each level manages a subset of the network. This dimensional change enables scalability to millions of containers while keeping individual routing tables manageable.
Data Source
AI summary
A virtual network provider system supports a virtual network including virtual machines that are each assigned to an underlay address of an underlay addressing scheme. The virtual network provider system further includes multiple routing domains each defined to include a different subset of the virtual machines. Each of the routing domains is assigned to a range of overlay addresses of an overlay addressing scheme. For each routing domain, the assigned range of overlay addresses is allocated among the subset of the virtual machines in the routing domain. The system further includes a virtual network host configured to use addresses of the overlay addressing scheme to selectively route messages between endpoints on select pairs of the virtual machines assigned to a same routing domain of the plurality of routing domains.