HP FlexFabric Virtual Switch 5900v Technology White Paper

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• 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.
Figure 2 5
900v virtual switch system framework
VMware ESXi
Station 1
VMware ESXi
Station 2
VMware ESXi
Station 3
VM
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VM
#4
VM
#3
VM
#2
VM
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VM
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VM
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VFE VFE VFE
EVB Switch
5900v
VCE
VCE (Virtual Control Engine)
• Operates on VMs.
• Serves as the OpenFlow controller, and
implements unified VFE management and
configuration
• Closely related to VMware vCenter Server.
vCenter Server
Plug-in
Plug-in
• Installed and operates in the vCenter Server
through VCE.
• Enhances the network control capability (such as
PVLAN, VEPA, and link aggregation) of vNIC
ports.
VFE (Virtual Forwarding Engine)
• Operates on VMware ESXi, and can
be used as a virtual switch in the
VMware environment.
• Serves as the forwarding plane to
implement the traffic control and
forwarding for the virtual ports.
• Multiple VFEs serve a distributed
virtual switch.
Virtual Forwarding Engine (VFE)
Operating on the ESXi host, a VFE is part of the VMware ESXi kernel. The VFE can be used as a virtual
switch in the VMware environment.
The VFE serves as the forwarding plane to implement traffic control and forwarding for the virtual ports.
After receiving data, the VFE searches the local flow entries for the destination port. If no port is matched,
it forwards the data to the VCE, which determines the forwarding policy and destination port.
VFEs deployed on multiple ESXi hosts serve as a distributed virtual switch. When a VM migrates to other
ESXi hosts, the network policies on the virtual NIC can be synchronized to all these hosts, under the
supervision of both the VCE and IMC.