Virtual gateway router
A facility for configuring a virtual data center is described. A user such as an administrator uses a management interface to input information specifying a configuration for a virtual data center including virtual network nodes and virtual routers. In response, the facility instantiates each virtual network router needed for the configuration, such as by, for each, instantiating on commodity hardware a virtual machine running a general-purpose operating system used to provide routing services to the virtual network nodes.
1. A computer-readable storage device having contents adapted to cause a computing system to perform operations for provisioning virtual data centers, the operations comprising:
receiving a request to instantiate a virtual network router for routing traffic among a plurality of virtual network nodes;
selecting one of a plurality of physical machines each executing at least one virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router; and
in response to the received request, instantiating a new virtual machine on the selected physical machine as a virtual network router.
2. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 wherein the request is received via a visual user interface.
3. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to route traffic among a plurality of virtual network nodes comprising a single subnet.
4. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to route traffic among pluralities of virtual network nodes each comprising a subnet, in such a manner that the virtual network nodes of each subnet are isolated.
5. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide network gateway services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
6. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide DHCP services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
7. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide DNS services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
8. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide network-attached storage services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
9. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide firewall services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
10. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide network address translation and port forwarding services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
11. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide load balancing services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
12. The computer-readable storage device of claim 1 , the operations further comprising causing the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router to provide network traffic shaping services to the plurality of virtual network nodes.
13. An apparatus for providing network routing among the plurality of virtual machines instantiated as network nodes, comprising:
one or more physical processors each comprising one or more processor cores; and
one or more physical computer memories collectively containing a plurality of virtual machine instances each instantiated as a virtual network router configured to route network traffic between a proper subset of the plurality of virtual machines instantiated as network nodes.
14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein a general-purpose operating system is installed on each of the plurality of virtual machine instances instantiated as virtual network routers in order to perform the routing.
15. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the physical processors and physical computer memories comprise a general-purpose computer.
16. One or more computer-readable storage devices collectively storing a data structure relating to the operation of a virtual data center configuration, the data structure comprising:
for each of a plurality of virtual machines instantiated as virtual network routers and executing in order to route traffic among a plurality of virtual networks each comprising a plurality of virtual network nodes, information identifying the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router,
such that the information contained by the data structure for a particular virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router can be used to access the particular virtual machine.
17. The computer-readable storage devices of claim 16 , the data structure further comprising:
for each of the plurality of virtual machines instantiated as virtual network routers and executing in order to route traffic among the plurality of virtual network nodes comprising each of the plurality of virtual machines, information identifying a plurality of virtual network nodes connected by the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router.
18. The computer-readable storage devices of claim 16 , the data structure further comprising:
for each of at least one of the plurality of virtual machines instantiated as virtual network routers and executing in order to route traffic among the plurality of virtual network nodes comprising each of the plurality of virtual machines, information identifying another virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router that is connected to the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router.
19. The computer-readable storage devices of claim 16 , the data structure further comprising:
for each of at least one of the plurality of virtual machines instantiated as virtual network routers and executing in order to route traffic among the plurality of virtual network nodes comprising each of the plurality of virtual machines, information identifying an IPSec endpoint for creating a secure tunnel to a network outside the virtual data center that is connected to the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router.
20. The computer-readable storage devices of claim 16 , the data structure further comprising:
for each of at least one of the plurality of virtual machines instantiated as virtual network routers and executing in order to route traffic among the plurality of virtual network nodes comprising each of the plurality of virtual machines, information identifying a virtual edge router for connecting to an external network outside the virtual data center that is connected to the virtual machine instantiated as a virtual network router.