US 12,341,680 B2
Service operation chaining
Sami Boutros, Union City, CA (US); Pere Monclus, Union City, CA (US); Philip Kippen, Fall City, WA (US); Dharma Rajan, North Miami Beach, FL (US); and Yashika Narang, Fall City, WA (US)
Assigned to VMWare LLC, Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed by VMware LLC, Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed on Jul. 28, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/227,303.
Application 18/227,303 is a continuation of application No. 17/067,635, filed on Oct. 9, 2020, granted, now 11,750,476.
Application 17/067,635 is a continuation of application No. 15/881,670, filed on Jan. 26, 2018, granted, now 10,805,181, issued on Oct. 13, 2020.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/578,507, filed on Oct. 29, 2017.
Prior Publication US 2023/0388200 A1, Nov. 30, 2023
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 45/00 (2022.01); H04L 12/46 (2006.01); H04L 41/5041 (2022.01); H04L 43/028 (2022.01); H04L 43/20 (2022.01); H04L 47/2408 (2022.01); H04L 47/2483 (2022.01); H04L 67/1014 (2022.01); H04L 67/567 (2022.01); G06F 9/455 (2018.01); H04L 9/40 (2022.01); H04L 45/76 (2022.01); H04L 67/10 (2022.01); H04L 69/22 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 43/20 (2022.05) [H04L 12/4633 (2013.01); H04L 41/5041 (2013.01); H04L 43/028 (2013.01); H04L 45/00 (2013.01); H04L 47/2408 (2013.01); H04L 47/2483 (2013.01); H04L 67/1014 (2013.01); H04L 67/567 (2022.05); G06F 2009/45595 (2013.01); H04L 45/76 (2022.05); H04L 63/0209 (2013.01); H04L 63/123 (2013.01); H04L 67/10 (2013.01); H04L 69/22 (2013.01); H04L 2212/00 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of specifying service operations for a data message associated with a particular machine executing on a host computer, the method comprising:
at the host computer:
storing, in a tunnel header for encapsulating a data message, a plurality of service identifiers associated with a plurality of service machines for performing a plurality of service operations on the data message, the plurality of service identifiers stored in a variable sized option field of the tunnel header that allows different number of service machines to be specified for performing different number of service operations for different data message flows;
forwarding the data message encapsulated with the tunnel header along a tunnel to a first service machine to perform a first service operation identified by the plurality of service identifiers; and
storing in the tunnel header a tenant identifier identifying a particular tenant associated with the particular machine;
wherein the method is implemented in a multi-tenant datacenter, the tunnel header is a Geneve tunnel header, the tenant identifier is stored in a Geneve base header, and the plurality of service identifiers stored in the variable sized option field comprises the plurality of service identifiers stored in an option TLV (Type, Length, Value) of the Geneve header.