US 12,119,959 B2
Managing traffic for endpoints in data center environments to provide cloud management connectivity
Smita Nath, San Jose, CA (US); Siva Vaddepuri, San Jose, CA (US); Abhijit Vijay Warkhedi, Milpitas, CA (US); Shyam Kapadia, San Jose, CA (US); and Sundeep Kumar Singh, Fremont, CA (US)
Assigned to Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on Dec. 14, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/550,715.
Prior Publication US 2023/0188382 A1, Jun. 15, 2023
Int. Cl. H04L 12/46 (2006.01); G06F 15/173 (2006.01); H04L 41/04 (2022.01); H04L 41/046 (2022.01); H04L 45/00 (2022.01); H04L 45/741 (2022.01); H04L 61/103 (2022.01); H04L 61/5038 (2022.01); H04L 12/44 (2006.01); H04L 41/0806 (2022.01); H04L 41/34 (2022.01); H04L 67/567 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 12/4633 (2013.01) [G06F 15/17312 (2013.01); H04L 12/4641 (2013.01); H04L 41/04 (2013.01); H04L 41/046 (2013.01); H04L 45/26 (2013.01); H04L 45/66 (2013.01); H04L 45/72 (2013.01); H04L 45/741 (2013.01); H04L 61/103 (2013.01); H04L 61/5038 (2022.05); G06F 15/17343 (2013.01); H04L 12/44 (2013.01); H04L 41/048 (2013.01); H04L 41/0806 (2013.01); H04L 41/34 (2022.05); H04L 67/567 (2022.05)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for providing data-plane connectivity through a data center to manage a server in the data center, the method comprising:
determining, by an agent running on the server, to perform a management operation, wherein performance of the management operation includes communicating with a gateway proxy in the data center that provides connectivity to a cloud management platform;
generating, at the server, a first Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) Link-Local Address (LLA);
assigning a second IPV6 LLA to the gateway proxy associated with the data center;
assigning a Virtual Tunnel Endpoint (VTEP) address to the gateway proxy;
receiving, at the server, the second IPV6 LLA that is associated with the gateway proxy;
populating, by the server, a Layer 2 (L2) packet with the first IPV6 LLA as a first source IP address and the second IPV6 LLA as a first destination IP address, wherein the L2 packet includes information associated with performance of the management operation;
sending, from the server, the L2 packet over a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) to a switch in the data center to which the server is attached;
encapsulating, at the switch, the first packet using an encapsulation protocol to generate [an L3] a Layer-3 (L3) packet, the L3 packet having the VTEP address associated with the gateway proxy as a second destination address;
sending, from the switch, the L3 packet via a virtual tunnel within the data center to the VTEP address associated with the gateway proxy located in the data center;
decapsulating, at the gateway proxy, the L3 packet to result in the L2 packet; and
sending, from the gateway proxy, the information included in the L2 packet to the cloud management platform over a network that is external to the data center.