System and methods for open fabric management
A system for operating a plurality of information handling systems forming a network including a plurality of switches is provided. The switches include physical and virtual switches each having ports coupling information handling systems to one another. The system including a management unit configured to provide commands to the switches and to collect a status information for each of the switches; and an agent unit coupled to each of the switches, the agent configured to receive the commands from the management unit, provide the commands to the switch associated thereto, monitor status of the switch associated thereto, and provide the status information to the management unit. A method for operating a network and a computer program to perform the method for using a system as above is also provided. A network managing device configured to couple to a service provider in a network as above is also provided.
1. A system for operating a plurality of information handling systems forming a network, the system comprising:
one or more physical switches each of the physical switches having ports to couple the information handling systems to one another;
one or more virtual switches for routing packets between virtual machines and physical servers in the network;
a management unit;
one or more agent units, each agent unit being coupled to a respective one of the physical switches, and each agent unit being configured to receive one or more first commands from the management unit, provide the first commands to the respective one of the physical switches, monitor a status corresponding to the respective one of the physical switches, and provide the status corresponding to the respective one of the physical switches to the management unit; and
a virtual machine manager (VMM) coupled to the virtual switches, the VMM being configured to receive one or more second commands from the management unit, provide the second commands to the virtual switches, monitor a status corresponding to each of the virtual switches, and provide the status corresponding to each of the virtual switches to the management unit.
2. The system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of information handling systems includes a network server, an application server, and a load balancer.
3. The system of claim 1 wherein an information handling system in the plurality of information handling systems is coupled to the network through the use of a network interface card.
4. The system of claim 1 further comprising a control console for a user to access the management unit.
5. The system of claim 1 wherein each of the agent units comprises:
an administrative unit configured to perform provisioning and configuring of the respective one of the physical switches;
a control unit configured to execute network policies and service policies in the respective one of the physical switches; and
a monitor unit configured to monitor the status corresponding to the respective one of the physical switches.
6. A network management system configured to be coupled to a service provider having resources, a storage component, and a computational component to provide a service to a plurality of users through a network, the network management system comprising:
one or more physical switches;
one or more virtual switches for routing packets between virtual machines and physical servers in the network;
a central unit in a console for user interface, the central unit configured to couple with one or more agent units, each agent unit associated with a respective one of the physical switches;
a configuration channel coupling the central unit with each of the agent units to provide a first plurality of configuration parameters to each of the agent units and the respective one of the physical switches;
a control channel coupling the central unit with each of the agent units to provide control to each of the agent units and the respective one of the physical switches;
a monitor channel coupling the central unit with each of the agent units to enable monitoring of each of the agent units and the respective one of the physical switches; and
a virtual switch interface (VSI) coupled to the virtual switches and the central unit, the VSI being configured to provide a second plurality of configuration parameters to each of the virtual switches, control each of the virtual switches, monitor a status corresponding to each of the virtual switches, and provide the status corresponding to each of the virtual switches to the central unit.
7. The network management system of claim 6 further configured to form a VLAN coupling at least one of the physical switches and at least one of the virtual switches.