HaaS networking models

[George Silvis, III]

After our meeting yesterday, I thought a bit about what HaaS's
networking capabilities could be, with various different switches we've
been looking at. Here's the summaries of the four schemes I've thought
about. The first is the current HaaS; the second is what we're working
on getting done soon; the third is what patcable's Juniper switch is
capable of; the fourth is based on work that Somaya did last fall.

I think having all four of these in mind is important when figuring out
how the API should work eventually.

-George




-----Traditional VLAN-----

VLAN pool for network allocation.

An administrator can import an already-existing network (public
or private) on a specific VLAN.

Networks store a VLAN internally, but the user doesn't care.

NICs can be detached, or attached to a network.

HNICs can be detached, or attached to a network.

-----Trunking VLAN-----

VLAN pool for network allocation.

An administrator can import an already-existing network (public
or private) on a specific VLAN.

Networks store a VLAN internally.

NICs has a an attachment map. Keys are "native" or a VLAN
number, and values are networks. Each network can be attached
either natively or on their own VLAN but not both.

HNICs can be detached, or attached to a network.

-----Flexible VLAN-----

Networks just have a name (that can't repeat). On the
switch, "haas_" will be prefixed to the network name, to prevent
collisions.

An administrator can import an already-existing network (public
or private) with a custom name.

NICs have an attachment map. Keys are "native" or a VLAN number,
and values are networks. Networks cannot be repeated in one map.

HNICs are assigned a VLAN upon creation. Each HNIC can be
detached, or attached to a network.

-----Openflow-----

Networks have an Openflow controller to talk to that makes all
the decisions. HaaS has its own Openflow controller that delegates
decisions to the appropriate Openflow controller, depending on what
port/VLAN the packet entered at.

An adminstrator can create a public network easily. Importing a
network that goes outside of HaaS is kind of tricky---it's not at
all obvious how it should work. Certainly it won't be a pure
Openflow network outside of HaaS.

NICs have several options: Totally unattached. Attached to one
network, with a virtual NIC (that allows pushing VLAN tags).
Attached via an attachment map, where keys are "native" or a VLAN
number, and values are a pair of network and virtual NIC (that
doesn't allow pushing VLAN tags). [We might not want to allow
both attachment modes---they're really quite different.]

HNICs are assigned a VLAN upon creation. Each HNIC can be
detached, or attached to a network with a virtual NIC (that
doesn't allow pushing VLAN tags).