Policy-Driven Redundant Fabric Placement in Virtual Data Centers
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing solutions lack automation for configuring redundant fabrics in virtual data centers, making it cumbersome to ensure continuous access to compute and storage resources in case of device or link failures, especially in cloud environments where hundreds of tenants share the same physical resources.
Innovation Solution
A policy-driven mechanism that allows service providers and tenants to specify redundancy requirements using predefined motifs for logical connections, enabling automatic selection and placement of physical resources to establish redundant fabric patterns within virtual data centers, ensuring non-disruptive access and differentiated reliability levels.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If manual configuration of redundant fabrics is used, then flexibility in customizing redundancy requirements is achieved, but operational complexity and time consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service automation where the network management system automatically discovers physical topology, selects optimal redundant fabric motifs, and configures logical connections without manual intervention. The automation engine processes tenant requirements, evaluates available physical resources, and establishes redundant paths autonomously, eliminating the need for operators to manually configure complex redundant fabrics while maintaining full customization capabilities.
2Reliability
If manual configuration of redundant fabrics is used, then control over redundancy placement is achieved, but time consumption and operational efficiency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-defining multiple redundant fabric motifs (such as VPC, VPC+, X, Y, and hub-and-spoke patterns) with optimized connectivity characteristics. When a tenant requires redundancy, the automation engine selects from these pre-configured motifs and rapidly instantiates them based on current physical resource availability, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual design and configuration while ensuring optimal failure protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes configuration parameters by automatically adjusting motif selection, physical resource allocation, and logical connection parameters based on real-time tenant requirements and available infrastructure. The automation engine evaluates multiple configuration scenarios and selects optimal parameter combinations that satisfy redundancy requirements while minimizing configuration time and resource overhead.
3Productivity
If automated resource allocation is implemented, then operational efficiency improves, but control over specific fabric placement patterns is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements dynamic adaptability where the automation engine can select from multiple redundant fabric motifs (VPC, VPC+, X, Y, hub-and-spoke) and adjust configuration parameters based on real-time tenant requirements and physical resource availability. The system dynamically evaluates different placement scenarios and adapts the selected motif and its parameters to optimize both deployment speed and placement flexibility, allowing operators to specify preferred motifs while the system automates the detailed configuration process.
Data Source
AI summary
In one embodiment, a service provider management device provides a plurality of redundant fabric motifs, each indicating a subgraph pattern of logical connections for network segments of a virtual data center, and receives virtual data center tenant selection of one or more of the redundant fabric motifs for particular pairs of data center segments of the virtual data center. After determining available physical data center resources that correspond to the tenant selection of one or more of the redundant fabric motifs for particular pairs of data center segments, logical connections may then be established between particular network segments for the virtual data center according to the available physical data center resources corresponding to the tenant selection of one or more of the redundant fabric motifs for particular pairs of data center segments.