HP FlexFabric Virtual Switch 5900v Technology White Paper Part number: 5998-4548 Document version: 6W100-20131220 © Copyright 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.
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Overview The HP FlexFabric virtual switch 5900v (5900v virtual switch) is designed for virtualized environments such as data centers. It is applicable to the VMware vSphere ESXi Enterprise Plus Edition. The 5900v virtual switch integrates with VMware vCenter Server and VMware ESXi to provide the enhanced distributed virtual bridging function. Technical background The fast development of server virtualization brings more and more virtual machines (VMs) to deployment.
• Port-group based VM connections. • Automatic deployment of network service policies for VMs after a VM migration. • Clear boundary between virtual computing and network control. 5900v virtual switch implementation 5900v virtual switch components The 5900v virtual switch complies with the OpenFlow framework and implements the programmable network technology that separates the control plane and forwarding plane. It has three components, including the VCE, VFE, and plug-in, as shown in Figure 2.
Virtual Control Engine (VCE) A VCE is installed on a separate VM through the open virtualization format (OVF) template deployment function provided by the VMware vCenter Server. The VCE implements unified VFE management and configuration. Plug-in A plug-in is a third-party management interface that the 5900v virtual switch customizes for VMware. It operates on the VMware vCenter Server and mainly provides a configuration interface for port groups.
5. Specify a name (the VM on which the VCE resides) and location (the cluster or data center on which the VCE resides) for the deployed template. 6. Specify an ESXi host on which you want to run the deployed template, and a destination storage location and disk format for the VM files. 7. Configure properties (such as IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway) for the VCE. 8. Click Finish after verifying the configurations to complete VCE deployment. VCE is based on the standard B/S framework.
Plug-in deployment A plug-in is integrated into the vCenter Server, and it provides configurations and management for port groups. You can add the plug-in to the vCenter Server on the global configuration page. To deploy a plug-in: 1. Log in to http://IP:8080/gui, where IP is the IP address or domain name of a VM with a VCE installed. 2. Configure the IP address, username, and password for accessing the vCenter Server. 3. Click the icons for connecting the vCenter Server and installing the plug-in. 4.
5. The physical switch does the following: { Requests network policy configurations for the VSI type from IMC through HTTP or HTTPS. { Applies the configurations to the ports. 6. After receiving the data, the VFE searches the local OpenFlow flow entries for the destination port for data forwarding. If no port is matched, it forwards the data to the VCE component, which determines the forwarding policy and destination port. 7.
Figure 8 Port-group based VM connections Station 1 VM #1 VM #2 Station 2 VM #3 VM #4 VM #5 VM #6 VM #7 VM #8 HP 5900v VDS VMware ESXi VMware ESXi Port group: • Web Network policies • Emails applied to VMs • Authentication • Database HP iMC 5900v vCenter Server Plug-in VCE Automatic deployment of network policies for VM migration In a virtualization environment, VM failures, dynamic resource scheduling (DRS), server failures, or planned server stoppage might result in VM migration.
Figure 9 Automatic deployment of network policies for VM migration Station 1 VM #1 VM #2 VM #3 Station 2 VM VM#1 #5 VM #4 VM VM#2 #6 VM VM#3 #7 VM VM#4 #8 HP 5900v VDS VMware ESXi Network policy migration: VMware ESXi • Maintains network Reasons for VM migration: policies for ports through • VM failures • EVB protocol negotiation • VEPA traffic forwarding SOAP/REST interface obtains network policies for ports • Dynamic resource the 802.1 Qbg standard.
Application scenarios The 5900v virtual switch provides granular control and management of traffic in virtualized environments, such as data centers deployed with the VMware ESXi Enterprise Plus Edition. The VEPA forwarding and traffic monitoring and management provided by the 5900v virtual switch enable you to implement automatic deployment of a VM network. To deploy a VM network: • Install an EVB bridge (such as an HP 5900 switch) on top of a standard 42U server rack.
{ Saves the network resource configurations to the VTDB database. 4. When a VM is created, started, or migrated, VDP negotiation is performed between the HP 5900 switch (EVB bridge) and the 5900v virtual switch VCE. 5. The HP 5900 switch does the following: { Obtains network policy configurations for the VSIs on the VM from IMC VCM through HTTP. { Applies the configurations to its ports. 6. The VFE that is integrated in VMware vSphere forwards traffic from the VMs.
