PLUMgrid Toolbox: Tools to Install, Operate and Monitor Your Virtual Network Infrastructure

Transcription

1 Toolbox: Tools to Install, Operate and Monitor Your Virtual Network Infrastructure Introduction The concept of Virtual Networking Infrastructure (VNI) is disrupting the networking space and is enabling the buildout of large scale clouds with instant provisioning of resources. The flexible nature of a VNI is such that networks and topologies can be created dynamically based on the application or user requirements and administrators constraints. Operating a VNI at scale requires proactive installation deployment checklists coupled with monitoring and diagnostic capabilities. This minimizes time to deployment as well as downtime during upgrades, new feature rollouts and isolated infrastructure failures. The current troubleshooting processes and tools built for VNIs are reactive and don t provide quick isolation and resolution of issues. Also, currently available standalone diagnostic tools are focused on troubleshooting a specific aspect of the VNI, such as number of connections or health of each compute nodes. They do not provide the complete overview of the VNI health and they do not automatically correlate failures across multiple elements nor help with troubleshooting of issues. To add to the problem, the overall deployment, management and troubleshooting of the VNI becomes more complex as clouds scale given the distributed nature of the VNI itself. Toolbox enables OpenStack cloud operators and administrators to monitor, troubleshoot and diagnose their VNI in pre-deployment, runtime and diagnostic areas. Operational Tools Toolbox, allows real time monitoring and comprehensive troubleshooting of the VNI. operational tools form a seamless link with the (1) which enables real-time monitoring of the virtual network along with providing relevant information in the pre-deployment process of an OpenStack network. Toolbox consists of eleven different tools designed to support a cloud operator throughout the entire life cycle of the VNI. All tools seamlessly integrate with ONS and enable rapid fault detection without compromising the VNI performance. (1) A is a collection of key ONS components, consisting of Edges, Gateways and multiple Virtual Domains associated with a single Director cluster. 1/6 2015, Inc. All rights reserved.

2 Directors Internet IO Visor Gateways COMPATIBLE IO Visor Edges Figure 1: Operational Tools Integrated with Life Cycle Manager 2 () when used in conjunction with Toolbox provides a central operational location to the administrator to monitor each node in a, reducing diagnostic and deployment time substantially. Administrators can set alerts, get notifications, perform remote diagnostic of the entire VNI with simple and intuitive syntax. Pre Deployment Runtime Diagnostics Connectivity Check Resource Check Status Check Virtual SSH Report System Alerts Database Status Log Collector Virtual Trace Route Virtual Traffic Dump NAT Inspector Figure 2: Toolbox - Used at Various Stages of the Deployment As shown in the figure 2, Toolbox provides specific tools for each phase of the virtual network infrastructure lifecycle: pre deployment, runtime and diagnostics. (2) Life Cycle Manager streamlines and consistently installs Components on supported OpenStack distributions. 2/6 2015, Inc. All rights reserved.

3 Pre Deployment Tools Pre deployment tools were developed to aid the overall deployment process of the OpenStack network based on ONS. These tools focus on establishing the correct physical network connectivity among all compute nodes and components. The following pre deployment tools allow administrators to conduct a pre-install validation and follow a checklist to setup and configure the VNI correctly. Connectivity Check Connectivity Check minimizes deployment issues by verifying the management and fabric network connectivity of Directors, nodes and gateways deployed as components. It also checks the MTU of the interfaces connected to the fabric network. Connectivity Check can be triggered from the Lifecycle Manager (). Connectivity Check is easy to use, one step command to ensure connectivity across the physical and virtual network infrastructure. Connectivity Check Validation of Connectivity Management Network Validation of Connectivity Fabric Network Clear Results of Connectivity Across the Environment Resource Check Resource Check examines the availability of hardware resources such as RAM, HDD required to deploy directors, edges and gateways in an OpenStack Cluster. It allows the cloud administrator to verify if the OpenStack cluster is ready to deploy ONS by doing a resource scan in the zone. Node s Resource Validation Resource Check Validation of Resources Across the Environment Node s Resource Validation Resource Check is a single command function that triggers an automated validation of the resource availability on each node basis hence minimizing pre-deployment validation time. It helps OpenStack cloud administrator eliminate manual steps which can be cumbersome and lengthy and error prone. 3/6 2015, Inc. All rights reserved.

4 Operational Runtime Tools Runtime tools allow the cloud administrator to monitor the VNI real-time. These tools provide a live connection for the administrator into the zone to have proactive and periodic health status checks of the VNI. Status Check Status Check provides a health report of essential OpenStack and services running on the Director(s). The tool helps effectively monitor and maintain the high availability of the Director cluster. In case of single director failure, Status Check will inform the administrator about the services still running on other Director nodes. Status Check Monitoring the Health of Director Cluster Alerts Cloud Administrator in Case of Service Issues Status Check is mainly used as a one stop shop to examine the director cluster health. Virtual SSH A cloud administrator can connect to all virtual machines (VM) in any Virtual Domain using their unique Port UUIDs with Virtual SSH. The administrator does not need to reconfigure or make changes to the virtual network to access virtual machine securely within Virtual Domains or edges. Virtual machine mobility and associated destination IP address changes doesn t affect administrator accessibility to virtual machine through the Port UUID. Administrators can script and automate to run Virtual SSH as a single command at periodic basis across a large number of virtual machines, thus saving time substantially to get reports. Virtual SSH Call Out Any VM in a Virtual Domain using Port UUID Further, an administrator can also update RPMs/DEBs for each virtual machine through secure SSH tunnel. Report Report allows a cloud administrator to configure and automatically receive alert s. report performs the following functions: Periodic updates about the status of Director Cluster services Immediate notification to the administrator in case of a component crash Periodic updates about any changes in the components Director Cluster Report Component Crash Updates about to the Cloud Administrator Component Changes 4/6 2015, Inc. All rights reserved.

5 System Alerts System Alerts sends alarm notifications for unexpected VNF scenarios for which the user should be notified. One example is an alarm for an interface that cannot be classified to a predefined security group in the. For example, administrator will be automatically notified if Director is running on compute edges whose storage capacity has reached a specified capacity limit. Such alerts help an administrator plan and schedule modifications to their VNI. System Alerts Periodic Updates About to the Cloud Administrator Database Status Database Status allows the cloud administrator to validate the consistency of Neutron database with Configuration Database (CDB). It helps keep both databases in sync t and helps resolve conflicts related to network configurations. Administrator can issues a single command to check the network, subnets, routers and ports information within the across different databases. Database Status Check Database Integrity Across the VNI (Ports, Subnets, Routers) Diagnostic Tools Diagnostic tools primarily focus on helping cloud administrator proactively troubleshoot network related issues found in the VNI. These tools are used to debug specific issues when runtime tools alert the administrator about the problems in VNI. Virtual Traffic Dump Virtual Traffic Dump allows administrator to see traffic on any virtual interface within a through without logging into that virtual machine. Virtual Traffic Dump Monitor Any VM Related Traffic Traffic Log Collection Remotely Log Collector Log Collector retrieves logs from all edges and Directors and puts them in a standardized log structure for administrator s analysis. Log Collector Directors Edges Cohesive Pools of Logs from Log Collector bundles logs together cutting down the initial turnaround time to initiate product support as all information is available at hand. The log bundle ensures rapid root cause analysis for incident resolution. 5/6 2015, Inc. All rights reserved.

6 NAT Inspector NAT Inspector allows the cloud administrator to debug s NAT Virtual Network Function (VNF). The tool, when triggered, allows the administrator to monitor and visualize existing NAT flows. NAT Inspector Visualization of NAT Flows in a VNI Virtual Trace Route Virtual Trace Route can determine which component of the VNI is causing traffic loss. It helps trace the packet route through kernel quickly to determine which VNF is failing. Virtual Trace Route can be used to rule out virtual network failure if the packet is getting dropped at tunnel. Virtual Trace Route Server 1 VM1 Server 2 VM2 Conclusion Monitor Virtual Network As the size and scale of OpenStack clouds grow in data centers, virtual network focused operational tools should satisfy cloud s scalability, security and production proven requirements without causing any downtime or degradation in performance. Toolbox provides the necessary tools to manage the complete lifecycle of the VNI by validating, monitoring and diagnosing OpenStack virtual network infrastructure related issues. is a leader of secure and scalable software-defined networking (SDN) solutions for OpenStack clouds. To learn more about visit: 6/6 2015, Inc. All rights reserved.