Method and apparatus for implementing control of multiple physically dual homed devices
View Patent ↗A ring control protocol is used to establish a separate control plane for a plurality of physically dual homed devices to enable collections of dual homed devices to be represented by a single pair of addresses into the attached routed Ethernet network. The gateway devices analyze the passing ring control packets to create direct mappings for data packets to the routed Ethernet network. Thus, although the dual homed devices are treated as a ring from a control perspective, the data path is implemented to be direct so that data packets continue to flow directly from the dual homed devices to each of the attached gateway devices. In one embodiment, each of the gateway devices implements a virtual switch and advertises the MAC address of the virtual switch into the routed Ethernet network rather than the MAC addresses of each of the attached Ethernet Switch Units.
1. A method of implementing control of multiple network devices, the multiple network devices being physically dual homed on a pair of gateways configured to provide interconnectivity between the multiple network devices and a routed Ethernet network, the method comprising the steps of:
implementing, by each gateway, at least one virtual switch instance to represent the multiple dual homed network devices into the routed Ethernet network; and
implementing at least one ring-based control protocol instance between the at least one virtual switch instance of each gateway and the multiple physically dual homed network devices to enable the virtual switches to coordinate representation of the dual homed network devices into the routed Ethernet network, wherein each gateway U-turns control traffic received from the dual homed network devices to implement a logical ring including the virtual switch instance of each gateway and the multiple physically dual homed network devices.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein a first ring-based control protocol instance is implemented between a first virtual switch instance on a first of the gateways, a second virtual switch instance on a second of the gateways, and a first of the multiple physically dual homed network devices to enable the first gateway and second gateway to coordinate representation of the first dual homed network device into the routed Ethernet network.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein a second ring-based control protocol instance separate from the first ring-based control protocol instance is implemented between the first virtual switch instance on the first gateway, the second virtual switch instance on the second gateway, and a second of the multiple physically dual homed network devices to enable the first gateway and second gateway to coordinate representation of the second dual homed network device into the routed Ethernet network.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein a separate ring-based control protocol instance is implemented for each of the dual homed network devices.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the gateways are connected by an inter-gateway trunk, and wherein if the unified ring-based control protocol instance is implemented to coordinate representation of an odd number of dual homed network devices, the inter-gateway trunk will be used to close the logical ring.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein control traffic and data traffic are treated differently by the gateways.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the virtual switch instance summarizes traffic into the routed Ethernet network.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein each virtual switch instance advertises a single MAC address into the routed Ethernet network so that MAC addresses of the represented dual homed network devices are not required to be advertised into the routed Ethernet network.
9. The method of claim 7 , wherein each virtual switch instance represents a set of dual homed network devices with similar failover characteristics.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the dual homed network devices is an Ethernet switch unit.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein control packets received from one of the multiple dual homed network devices will be U-turned to be output toward another of the multiple dual homed network devices so that the control packets follow a logical ring, while data packets from the one of the multiple dual homed network devices will be forwarded directly onto the routed Ethernet network.
12. A data center, comprising:
a plurality of Ethernet switch units, each of the plurality of Ethernet switch units providing connectivity to a plurality of servers;
at least two gateways providing connectivity between the Ethernet switch units and a routed Ethernet network, each of the gateways implementing at least one instance of a virtual switch to summarize MAC addresses of represented Ethernet switch units into the routed Ethernet network;
communication links extending between each of the Ethernet switch units and the at least two gateways to enable each Ethernet switch unit to be dual homed on the at least two gateways so that the Ethernet switch unit is provided with redundant connectivity to the routed Ethernet network; and
wherein at least one separate Ethernet ring control protocol instance is implemented within the data center for each of the Ethernet switch units to coordinate representation of the Ethernet switch units by the virtual switches into the routed Ethernet network, wherein each virtual switch instance participates in multiple separate Ethernet ring control protocol instances to enable the virtual switch to represent multiple Ethernet switch units into the routed Ethernet network.
13. The data center of claim 12 , wherein a separate Ethernet ring control protocol instance is implemented for sets of multiple Ethernet switch units.
14. The data center of claim 13 , wherein control packets received from one of the Ethernet switch units will be U-turned to be output toward another Ethernet switch unit so that the control packets follow a logical ring, while data packets from the one of the Ethernet switch units will be forwarded directly onto the routed Ethernet network.
15. A method of implementing control of multiple network devices, the multiple network devices being physically dual homed on a same pair of gateways configured to provide interconnectivity between the multiple network devices and a routed Ethernet network, the method comprising the steps of:
implementing, by each gateway, at least one virtual switch instance to represent the multiple dual homed network devices into the routed Ethernet network, each virtual switch instance having a corresponding media access control (MAC) address; and
implementing at least one ring-based control protocol instance between the virtual switch instances and the multiple dual homed network devices to enable the virtual switch instances to coordinate representation of the multiple dual homed network devices into the routed Ethernet network such that each of the multiple dual homed network devices is represented into the routed Ethernet network using one of the corresponding MAC addresses based on control packets distributed in the at least one ring-based control protocol instance.
16. A method of implementing control of multiple network devices, the multiple network devices being physically dual homed on a pair of gateways configured to provide interconnectivity between the multiple network devices and a routed Ethernet network, the method comprising the steps of:
implementing, by each gateway, at least one virtual switch instance to represent the multiple dual homed network devices into the routed Ethernet network; and
implementing at least one ring-based control protocol instance between the at least one virtual switch instance of each gateway and the multiple physically dual homed network devices to enable the virtual switches to coordinate representation of the dual homed network devices into the routed Ethernet network, wherein control packets received from one of the multiple dual homed network devices will be U-turned to be output toward another of the multiple dual homed network devices so that the control packets follow a logical ring, while data packets from the one of the multiple dual homed network devices will be forwarded directly onto the routed Ethernet network.