Scalable policy management in an edge virtual bridging (EVB) environment

1. A method comprising:

validating, by a switch, a message including virtual machine (VM) information using a value of a virtual station interface (VSI) type identification (ID) to perform a lookup of a fetched VSI database, wherein the VM information for the VM comprises VSI type ID and virtual local area network (VLAN) ID;

generating, by the switch, a first table for multiple different VM types with at least a portion of information from the VSI database;

retrieving, by the switch, an address of the VM from the first table for the multiple different VM types based on using VSI type ID and network ID;

retrieving, by the switch, rules associated with the retrieved address of the VM and the VSI type ID from a second table including VM information; and

applying, by the switch, the associated rules for the VM.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the VSI database comprises one or more rules for different VSI types and access rules.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first table comprises multiple VSI type IDs each associated with a source address and a VLAN address.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the second table comprises multiple VSI type IDs associated with one or more access rules.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the second table further comprises transmission rate information and receiving rate information.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the switch fetches the information from the VSI database from a server in an edge virtual bridging (EVB) system.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

generating, by the switch, the second table including the VM information and using information from the VSI database for the multiple different VM types.

8. The method of claim 4 , wherein hardware resources for the access rules are proportional to a size of the second table.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

adding, by the switch, newly created VSI type IDs to the second table along with associated access rules.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

retrieving VSI type ID from the first table by performing a table look up (TLU) on the first table using the VSI type ID and VLAN ID as input, and outputting a source MAC address for the VM;

performing a TLU on the second table using output from the TLU on the first table including the source MAC address and the VSI type ID for the VM as input; and

outputting the associated rules for the VM.

11. A method comprising:

validating, by a switch, a message including virtual machine (VM) information using a value to perform a lookup of a fetched virtual station interface (VSI) database, wherein the VM information for the VM comprises VSI type identification (ID) and network ID;

generating, by the switch, a first table including the VM information and using information from the VSI database for multiple different VM types;

retrieving, by the switch, an address of the VM from a second table based on using VSI type ID and network ID;

retrieving, by the switch, rules associated with the retrieved address of the VM and the VSI type ID from the first table including VM information; and

applying, by the switch, the associated rules for the VM.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the value comprises a VSI type ID, and the second table includes addresses for the multiple different VM types.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the VSI database comprises one or more rules for different VSI types and access rules, and the second table comprises multiple VSI type IDs each associated with a source address and a VLAN address.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the first table comprises multiple VSI type IDs associated with one or more access rules.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the first table further comprises transmission rate information and receiving rate information.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein the switch fetches the information from the VSI database from a server in an edge virtual bridging (EVB) system.

17. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

generating, by the switch, the second table for multiple different VM types with at least a portion of the information from the VSI database.

18. The method of claim 14 , wherein hardware resources for the access rules are proportional to a size of the first table.

19. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

adding, by the switch, newly created VSI type IDs to the first table along with associated access rules.

20. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

retrieving VSI type ID from the second table by performing a table look up (TLU) on the second table using the VSI type ID and VLAN ID as input, and outputting a source MAC address for the VM;

performing a TLU on the first table using output from the TLU on the second table including the source MAC address and the VSI type ID for the VM as input; and

outputting the associated rules for the VM.