Multi-tenant aware dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) mechanism for cloud networking

1. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, wherein the computer readable storage medium is not a transitory signal per se, the program instructions executable by a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) relay agent computing device to cause the DHCP relay agent computing device to:

receive a DHCP packet from a DHCP client;

insert a tenant-specific option information within the DHCP packet, wherein the tenant-specific option information is an indicator to a DHCP server to allocate an internet protocol address on an associated address space specific to a tenant in a multiple tenant cloud data center based on overlay networks; and

transmit the DHCP packet with the tenant-specific option information to the DHCP server via an underlay network.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the tenant-specific option information is selected from at least one of the group consisting of: a transport agent field used to denote an overlay protocol type that is used for tenant isolation; and a tenant identification field used to uniquely identify the tenant.

3. The computer program product of claim 2 , wherein the overlay protocol type is selected from one of the group consisting of: a virtual local area network (VLAN); virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN); distributed overlay virtual ethernet (DOVE); network virtualization using generic routing encapsulation (NVGRE); stateless transport tunneling (STT); and generic network virtualization encapsulation (GENEVE).

4. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the tenant-specific option information comprises a virtual network identification field used to denote a virtual network.

5. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the tenant-specific option information is inserted in a DHCP header of the DHCP packet.

6. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the DHCP packet is received at the DHCP relay agent computing device and the tenant-specific option information is inserted within the DHCP at the DHCP relay agent computing device.

7. The computer program product of claim 6 , wherein the DHCP packet with the tenant-specific option information is transmitted from the DHCP relay agent computing device to a DHCP server.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the programming instructions are further configured to transmit an internet protocol (IP) address to a DHCP client which corresponds with a tenant identification field of the tenant-specific option information.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the IP address transmitted to the DHCP client corresponds with the tenant identification field of the tenant-specific option information and overlaps with an IP address of a different independent tenant.

10. A system comprising:

a processor, a computer readable memory and a computer readable storage medium associated with a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server;

program instructions to receive a DHCP packet;

program instructions to determine that the DHCP packet comprises tenant-specific option information, wherein the tenant-specific option information is an indicator to the DHCP server to allocate an internet protocol address on an associated address space specific to a tenant in a multiple tenant cloud data center based on overlay networks; and

program instructions to select the associated address space based on the tenant-specific option information,

wherein the program instructions are stored on the computer readable storage medium for execution by the processor via the computer readable memory.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the selecting the associated address space based on the tenant-specific option information comprises:

determining that the DHCP packet with the tenant-specific option information has at least one of a link selection sub-option and a subnet selection option;

determining that an address is available in a requested subnet when the DHCP packet is determined to have at least one of the link selection sub-option and the subnet selection option; and

allocating the address in the requested subnet when the address is available in the requested subnet.

12. The system claim 11 , wherein the selecting the associated address space based on the tenant-specific option information further comprises allocating an address for a virtual network identifier in response to a determination that the DHCP packet does not have at least one of the link selection sub-option and the subnet selection option.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the selecting the associated address space based on the tenant-specific option information further comprises allocating an address for a virtual network identified in response to a determination that the address is not available in the requested subnet.

14. The system of claim 11 , further comprising program instructions to allocate a global address space in response to a determination that the received DHCP packet is devoid of the tenant-specific option information.

15. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, wherein the computer readable storage medium is not a transitory signal per se, the program instructions executable by a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) relay agent computing device to cause the DHCP relay agent computing device to:

insert multi-tenancy information within a DHCP packet, the multi-tenancy information including tenant-specific option information indicating to a DHCP server to allocate an internet protocol address on an associated address space specific to a tenant in a multiple tenant cloud data center; and

transmit the DHCP packet with the multi-tenancy information to the DHCP server.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the multi-tenancy information is selected from at least one of the group consisting of: a transport agent field used to denote an overlay protocol type that is used for tenant isolation; a tenant identification field used to uniquely identify the tenant; and a virtual network identification field used to denote a virtual network.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the tenant-specific option information comprises a transport agent field used to denote an overlay protocol type that is used for tenant isolation, and the overlay protocol type is selected from one of the group consisting of: a virtual local area network (VLAN); virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN); distributed overlay virtual ethernet (DOVE); network virtualization using generic routing encapsulation (NVGRE); stateless transport tunneling (STT); and generic network virtualization encapsulation (GENEVE).

18. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the program instructions further cause the DHCP relay agent computing device to transmit an internet protocol (IP) address to a DHCP client which corresponds with a tenant identification field of the tenant-specific option information.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 , wherein the IP address transmitted to the DHCP client corresponds with the tenant identification field of the tenant-specific option information and overlaps with an IP address of a different independent tenant.

20. The computer program product of claim 15 , wherein the program instructions further cause the DHCP relay agent computing device to:

configure a first field of a tenant-specific DHCP option frame format to denote an overlay protocol type that is used for tenant isolation in overlay virtual networks;

configure a second field of the tenant-specific DHCP option frame format to uniquely identify a tenant in the multiple tenant cloud data center; and

configure a third field of the tenant-specific DHCP option frame format to denote a virtual network of the overlay virtual networks, wherein the second field is used by the DHCP server to locally scope an address range to an address space of the tenant.