Abstract: Techniques disclosed herein relate to migrating virtual computing instances such as virtual machines (VMs). In one embodiment, VMs are migrated across different virtual infrastructure platforms by, among other things, translating between resource models used by virtual infrastructure managers (VIMs) that manage the different virtual infrastructure platforms. VM migrations may also be validated prior to being performed, including based on resource policies that define what is and/or is not allowed to migrate, thereby providing compliance and controls for borderless data centers. In addition, an agent-based technique may be used to migrate VMs and physical servers to virtual infrastructure, without requiring access to an underlying hypervisor layer.

Abstract: Examples for managing virtual infrastructure resources in cloud environments can include (1) instantiating an orchestration node for managing local control planes at multiple clouds, (2) instantiating first and second local control planes at different respective clouds, the first and second local control planes interfacing with different respective virtualized infrastructure managers (“VIMs”), where the first and second local control planes establish secure communication with the orchestration node, and (3) deploying, by the orchestration node, services to the first and second local control planes. Further, the first and second local control planes can cause the respective VIMs to manage the services at the different respective clouds.

Abstract: One or more embodiments provide a firewall policy between a first virtual data center and a second virtual data center. A method includes: establishing a communication link between a first firewall server in the first virtual data center and a second firewall server in the second virtual data center over a network, the first firewall server having a first firewall defined by polices applied to groups of objects in the first virtual data center; obtaining, at the first firewall server, an inventory of objects in the second virtual data center from the second firewall server; determining firewall rule tuples by mapping the policies of the first firewall to groups of objects in the inventory of the second virtual data center; and sending the firewall rule tuples to enforcement points in the second virtual data center.

Abstract: A virtualized computing environment includes a plurality of host computers, each host being connected to a physical network and having a hypervisor executing therein. To provision a virtual machine requiring a connection to a virtual network in one of the hosts, a candidate host for hosting the virtual machine, the candidate host having the virtual network configured therein, is selected. A request is then made for a status of the virtual network to the candidate host. The status of the virtual network is then received from the candidate host. If the virtual network is available, then the virtual machine is deployed to the candidate host. If the virtual network is not available, then a second candidate host is selected for hosting the virtual machine.

Abstract: One or more examples provide techniques for providing a multi-site wide area network in a cloud computing system. In an example, a method of providing a multi-site wide area network (WAN) in a cloud computing system includes: creating a plurality of sites; creating a compute profile in each of the plurality of sites, each compute profile having a compute cluster of virtual machines (VMs); creating a service mesh having the compute profile of each of the plurality of sites; and deploying an application to the service mesh.

Abstract: A system and method for orchestrating distributed operations to be executed in a distributed computing system with multiple virtual infrastructures uses a distributed operation descriptor to find any Cloud-Native Network Function (CNF) entry in the distributed operation descriptor. For each found CNF entry, a CNF descriptor is retrieved from a CNF catalog and parsed to find an overridable property for a CNF described in the CNF descriptor for which a property override is defined. Then, a target virtual infrastructure is selected from the multiple virtual infrastructures to perform a lifecycle management operation of the CNF. Instructions are then transmitted to a local operator in the target virtual infrastructure with the property override so that information regarding the CNF is transmitted to a local orchestrator of the target virtual infrastructure to perform the lifecycle management operation of the CNF at the target virtual infrastructure using the property override.

Abstract: Examples for managing virtual infrastructure resources in cloud environments can include (1) instantiating an orchestration node for managing local control planes at multiple clouds, (2) instantiating first and second local control planes at different respective clouds, the first and second local control planes interfacing with different respective virtualized infrastructure managers (“VIMs”), where the first and second local control planes establish secure communication with the orchestration node, and (3) deploying, by the orchestration node, services to the first and second local control planes. Further, the first and second local control planes can cause the respective VIMs to manage the services at the different respective clouds.

Abstract: Techniques disclosed herein relate to migrating virtual computing instances such as virtual machines (VMs). In one embodiment, VMs are migrated across different virtual infrastructure platforms by, among other things, translating between resource models used by virtual infrastructure managers (VIMs) that manage the different virtual infrastructure platforms. VM migrations may also be validated prior to being performed, including based on resource policies that define what is and/or is not allowed to migrate, thereby providing compliance and controls for borderless data centers. In addition, an agent-based technique may be used to migrate VMs and physical servers to virtual infrastructure, without requiring access to an underlying hypervisor layer.

Abstract: An example method of migrating a firewall policy between a first virtual data center and a second virtual data center includes: generating a static firewall from a firewall document at a first firewall server in the first virtual data center, the firewall document defining polices applied to groups of objects in the first virtual data center, the static firewall including firewall rule tuples; sending the static firewall from the first firewall server to a second firewall server in the second virtual data center; migrating a plurality of virtual machines (VMs) from the first virtual data center to the second virtual data center; and importing the firewall document from the first firewall server to the second firewall server by mapping the policies of the first firewall to groups of objects in an inventory of the second virtual data center.

Abstract: A virtualized computing environment includes a plurality of host computers, each host being connected to a physical network and having a hypervisor executing therein. To provision a virtual machine requiring a connection to a virtual network in one of the hosts, a candidate host for hosting the virtual machine, the candidate host having the virtual network configured therein, is selected. A request is then made for a status of the virtual network to the candidate host. The status of the virtual network is then received from the candidate host. If the virtual network is available, then the virtual machine is deployed to the candidate host. If the virtual network is not available, then a second candidate host is selected for hosting the virtual machine.

Abstract: A system and method for deploying a virtual network function (VNF) are disclosed. Deploying a VNF includes receiving a request to instantiate a VNF in a network virtualization infrastructure, obtaining input from a user providing parameters needed for performing the instantiation of the VNF, determining a type of deployment for the VNF, and adding parameters inferred from the type of deployment to the user data to complete the parameters needed for deployment of the VNF, wherein the added parameters are inferred based on stored data regarding previous instantiations of the VNF.

Abstract: An orchestrator process can efficiently distribute images of virtual network functions (“VNFs”) in a telco network. The images can be accompanied by metadata that describes VNF requirements, such as computing requirements and functional characteristics. Based on the image metadata and location of a virtual infrastructure manager (“VIM”), the orchestrator can select a storage location and deploy the image to the storage location. The VIM can instantiate a corresponding VNF by retrieving the image. The orchestrator can track the storage location and cause the VIM to delete the image if the image is not used for a threshold period of time.

Abstract: Techniques disclosed herein manage and resolve incidents in hybridity manager applications, without the back-and-forth manual steps of the traditional software support lifecycle. In one embodiment, a virtual network operations center (NOC) with a centralized view of distributed, cross-cloud hybridity manager installations is responsible for tracking incident reports relating to hybridity managers and associated bugs, and the virtual NOC automatically publishes notifications of upgrade builds that fix the tracked bugs to the appropriate hybridity managers. When the same bug is encountered again with another hybridity manager instance, the virtual NOC may also publish an upgrade notification to the other hybridity manager instance, without requiring a support ticket to be filed, etc.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for cross-cloud hybrid services upgradability. In one embodiment, a virtual network operations center (NOC) with a centralized view of distributed, cross-cloud hybridity manager installations is responsible for continuously gathering information on the environments of on-premise and cloud computing systems, analyzing the gathered information to identify upgrades to hybridity manager instances that are compatible with dependent components and paired hybridity manager(s), and publishing notifications of compatible upgrades to the hybridity manager instances based on the analysis. The publishing of upgrade notifications by the virtual NOC is a server-initiated upgrade that is coordinated across hybrid cloud computing system sites, in contrast to traditional isolated client-initiated upgrades. In addition, the virtual NOC may revoke previous notifications if the associated upgrade versions are no longer compatible with the dependent components and/or the paired hybridity managers.

Abstract: A hybrid cloud computing system having a private data center and a public cloud computing system is discussed. The private data center is managed by a first organization. The public cloud computing system is managed by a second organization, and the first organization is a tenant in the public cloud computing system. The hybrid cloud computing system is configured to generate a mapping that contextualizes virtual objects migrated between the private data center and the public cloud computing system based on the objects' location. Such a mapping is maintained to expose the true hybridity of the hybrid cloud rather than present two distinct views of a private data center (or private cloud) and a public cloud.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a network system that includes several host machines for hosting virtual machines, divided into several different domains. The network system includes several local domain management servers. A first local domain management server of a first domain is for (i) initiating creation of a set of distributed virtual switch ports associated with a particular logical network identifier on a host machine within its domain and (ii) attaching a first virtual machine on the host machine to a created port associated with the particular logical network identifier in order for the first virtual machine to send traffic over the logical network. The network system includes a second level management server for coordinating the use of logical network identifiers between multiple different logical domain management servers in order for the first virtual machine to communicate via the logical network with a second virtual machine in a second domain.

Abstract: An orchestrator process can efficiently distribute images of virtual network functions (“VNFs”) in a telco network. The images can be accompanied by metadata that describes VNF requirements, such as computing requirements and functional characteristics. Based on the image metadata and location of a virtual infrastructure manager (“VIM”), the orchestrator can select a storage location and deploy the image to the storage location. The VIM can instantiate a corresponding VNF by retrieving the image. The orchestrator can track the storage location and cause the VIM to delete the image if the image is not used for a threshold period of time.

Abstract: A method of deploying a network service across a plurality of data centers, includes the steps of: in response to a request for or relating to a network service, identifying virtual network functions associated with the network service and determining network connectivity requirements of the virtual network functions, issuing commands to provision a first virtual link between at least two of the data centers in which the virtual network functions are to be deployed, and issuing commands to provision a second virtual link to one of the data centers in which the virtual network functions are to be deployed.

Abstract: A method of collecting and reporting inventory of resources deployed in a data center that includes hardware resources, a virtualization management software executed to provision virtual resources from the hardware resources, and a cloud management server executed to provision the virtual resources for tenants of the data center, includes the steps of: executing a first API call to the virtualization management software to collect first inventory of virtual resources deployed in the data center and a second API call to the cloud computing management software to collect second inventory of virtual resources deployed in the data center; storing the first and second inventory; and in response to an inventory request from a central orchestrator, initially sending a subset of the stored first and second inventory to the central orchestrator in accordance with parameters included in the inventory request, and thereafter sending updates to the subset to the central orchestrator periodically.

Abstract: Techniques leveraging CPU flow affinity to increase throughput of a layer 2 (L2) extension network are disclosed. In one embodiment, an L2 concentrator appliance, which bridges a local area network (LAN) and a wide area network (WAN) in a stretched network, is configured such that multiple Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) tunnels are pinned to respective CPUs or cores, which each process traffic flows for one of the IPsec tunnels. Such parallelism can increase the throughput of the stretched network. Further, an L2 concentrator appliance that receives FOU packets is configured to distribute the received FOU packets across receive queues based a deeper inspection of inner headers of such packets.