Forwarding element with physical and virtual data planes

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide a novel method of performing network slice-based operations on a data message at a hardware forwarding element (HFE) in a network. For a received data message flow, the method has the HFE identify a network slice associated with the received data message flow. This network slice in some embodiments is associated with a set of operations to be performed on the data message by several network elements, including one or more machines executing on one or more computers in the network. Once the network slice is identified, the method has the HFE process the data message flow based on a rule that applies to data messages associated with the identified slice.

1 - 20 . (canceled) 
     
     
         21 . A hardware forwarding element comprising:
 a data plane forwarding circuit to perform a slice-based data plane forwarding operations on a set of data messages received by the forwarding element; and   a control plane circuit comprising a set of processing units and a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing a slice identifier (ID) specifying program for execution by the set of processing units,   the program to specify slice IDs of network slices associated with data messages and to provide the slice IDs to the data plane forwarding circuit to perform slice-based forwarding operation based on the provided slice IDs.   
     
     
         22 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 21 , wherein the data plane forwarding circuit provides to the control plane circuit each data message for which the control plane circuit needs to specify the slice ID. 
     
     
         23 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 21 , wherein the data plane forwarding circuit provides to the control plane circuit a flow identifier for each data message for which the control plane circuit needs to specify the slice ID. 
     
     
         24 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 21 , wherein the non-transitory machine readable further stores a set of one or more service programs to perform a set of slice-based service operations on data messages for which the slice-ID specifying program identifies slice IDs. 
     
     
         25 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 21 , wherein the program is a Linux operating system with which at least one container is defined to perform the second set of data plane forwarding operations. 
     
     
         26 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 21 , wherein the program is a container machine. 
     
     
         27 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 21 , wherein the program is a virtual machine executing over a hypervisor executed by the set of processing units. 
     
     
         28 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 21 , wherein the program is a hypervisor comprising at least one module that performs at least a subset of the second set of data plane forwarding operations. 
     
     
         29 . A hardware forwarding element (HFE) for operating in a datacenter comprising a plurality of host computers executing hypervisors and virtual machines, the HFE comprising:
 a data plane forwarding circuit;   a processing circuit; and   a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing a hypervisor for execution by the processing circuit, wherein the hypervisor is similar to the hypervisor executing on a set of host computers, and comprises sets of instructions for:
 receiving control information for configuring the data plane forwarding circuit; 
 configuring the data plane forwarding circuit via an abstraction layer that enables the hypervisor to provide configuration data to the data plane forwarding circuit; and 
 receiving data regarding data messages forwarded by the data plane forwarding circuit through the abstraction layer. 
   
     
     
         30 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 29 , wherein the abstraction layer comprises a translation layer for translating communications from a network interface controller (NIC) format to a format for the data plane forwarding circuit. 
     
     
         31 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 29 , wherein
 the abstraction layer comprises a translation layer for translating communications from a data-plane independent format to a format for the data plane forwarding circuit, and   the hypervisor of each host computer in the set of host computers comprises an translation layer for translating communications from a data-plane independent format to a format for network interface controllers (NICs) of the host computers.   
     
     
         32 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 29 , wherein the hypervisors on the HFE and the set of host computers providing a common platform for configuring the HFE and the set of host computers. 
     
     
         33 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 29 , wherein the common platform for configuring the HFE and the set of host computers allows the HFE and the set of host computers to be configured to process same forwarding or service rules that are based on group identifiers. 
     
     
         34 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 29 , wherein the group identifiers are port group identifiers specifying groups of ports in the datacenter. 
     
     
         35 . The hardware forwarding element of  claim 29 , wherein the group identifiers are slice identifiers associated with network slices. 
     
     
         36 . A method of performing operations on a data message, the method comprising:
 at a hardware forwarding element (HFE) in the network,
 receiving the data message; 
 identifying a network slice associated with the received data message, said network slice associated with a set of operations to perform on the data message by a plurality of network elements including a set of machines executing on a set of computers in the network; and 
 processing the data message based on a rule that applies to data messages associated with the identified network slice. 
   
     
     
         37 . The method of  claim 36 , wherein
 the HFE has a data plane (DP) circuit;   identifying the network slice comprises identifying a slice identifier associated with the network slice;   processing the data message comprises using the slice identifier to identify in the DP circuit a rule that specifies an operation for the DP circuit to perform on the data message, and performing the identified operation on the data message.   
     
     
         38 . The method of  claim 37 , wherein
 the rule has a rule identifier that comprises the slice identifier, and   using the slice identifier comprises matching the identified slice identifier to the rule identifier of the rule.   
     
     
         39 . The method of  claim 37 , wherein the rule is a forwarding rule that forwards the data message to a particular port of the HFE. 
     
     
         40 . The method of  claim 39 , wherein the forwarding rule is a next-hop forwarding rule that selects between different next hops of different paths to same destinations in the network.