US 11,907,253 B2
Secure cluster pairing for business continuity and disaster recovery
Geetha Srikantan, Palo Alto, CA (US); Sudarsana Rao Piduri, Campbell, CA (US); Siddharth Sambamoorthy, Fremont, CA (US); Ashish Hanwadikar, San Jose, CA (US); Suresh Dussa, San Jose, CA (US); Aaron Anton Kapacinskas, Carnation, WA (US); and Mohan Kumar, San Jose, CA (US)
Assigned to CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on Dec. 28, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/563,449.
Application 17/563,449 is a continuation of application No. 16/132,982, filed on Sep. 17, 2018, granted, now 11,269,917.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/697,648, filed on Jul. 13, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2022/0121682 A1, Apr. 21, 2022
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06F 16/20 (2019.01); G06F 16/27 (2019.01); G06F 11/16 (2006.01); G06F 11/14 (2006.01); H04L 41/0893 (2022.01); H04L 67/1097 (2022.01); H04L 9/40 (2022.01); H04L 45/02 (2022.01); G06F 9/455 (2018.01); H04L 69/40 (2022.01)
CPC G06F 16/27 (2019.01) [G06F 9/45558 (2013.01); G06F 11/1464 (2013.01); G06F 11/1484 (2013.01); G06F 11/1662 (2013.01); H04L 41/0893 (2013.01); H04L 45/02 (2013.01); H04L 63/0263 (2013.01); H04L 63/0272 (2013.01); H04L 67/1097 (2013.01); H04L 69/40 (2013.01); G06F 2009/45595 (2013.01); G06F 2201/815 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
establishing a first subnet for replication in a first cluster that includes a plurality of host devices, each of the host devices including a respective controller virtual machine, which together form a virtual local area network for replication, each of the controller virtual machines being assigned an Ethernet interface;
assigning a respective replication Internet Protocol (IP) address to the Ethernet interface of each of the controller virtual machines;
modifying route tables and firewall rules of the controller virtual machines to allow communications between nodes of the first subnet;
designating a node in the first cluster to control replication operations with a second cluster, and assigning to the node in the first cluster a replication cluster IP address;
receiving, by the node in the first cluster, via the replication cluster IP address, information related to a second subnet for replication in a second cluster;
determining whether the second subnet and the first subnet are engaged in a self-pairing operation;
in response to determining that the second subnet and the first subnet are not engaged in a self-pairing operation, configuring the first subnet with the information related to the second subnet to pair the first cluster with the second cluster;
generating a dedicated communication channel for replication between the first cluster and the second cluster based on the configuring;
communicating information for disaster recovery to the second cluster through the dedicated communication channel so as to provide backup protection for the first cluster,
determining that the second subnet is not reachable for a predetermined amount of time; and
removing the dedicated communication channel for replication between the first cluster and the second cluster by un-pairing the first cluster from the second cluster, wherein the un-pairing is performed at the first cluster, but not at the second cluster, which is not reachable.