US 11,671,319 B2
Disruption minimization for guests when applying changes to a data plane of a packet handler in a host
Jingmin Zhou, Los Gatos, CA (US); Subrahmanyam Manuguri, San Jose, CA (US); and Anirban Sengupta, Saratoga, CA (US)
Assigned to Nicira, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed by Nicira, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed on Aug. 19, 2020, as Appl. No. 16/997,492.
Application 16/997,492 is a continuation of application No. 15/677,733, filed on Aug. 15, 2017, granted, now 10,756,969.
Prior Publication US 2020/0382371 A1, Dec. 3, 2020
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 47/10 (2022.01); H04L 41/0816 (2022.01); H04L 47/50 (2022.01); H04L 41/0823 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 41/0816 (2013.01) [H04L 41/0823 (2013.01); H04L 41/0836 (2013.01); H04L 47/10 (2013.01); H04L 47/50 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of applying changes to a data plane of a packet handler within a hypervisor executed by a host computing system to host one or more guests, without disrupting operation of the one or more guests, wherein the packet handler comprises a control plane and the data plane through which network traffic exchanged with the one or more guests pass, the method comprising:
in the hypervisor, receiving the network traffic;
in the control plane, extracting state information about states of the data plane;
buffering the network traffic in the hypervisor to prevent the network traffic from reaching the data plane until the network traffic is resumed;
after buffering the network traffic begins, updating one or more versions of one or more components of the data plane; and
after updating the one or more versions, restoring the states to the data plane using the state information and resuming the network traffic to the data plane from the hypervisor.