On the design of scalable, self-configuring virtual networks
David Isaac Wolinsky, Yonggang Liu, Pierre St. Juste, Girish Venkatasubramanian, Renato Figueiredo · 2009
Virtual networks (VNs) provide methods that simplify resource management, deal with connectivity constraints, and support legacy applications in distributed systems, by enabling global addressability of VN-connected machines through either a common layer 2 Ethernet or a NAT-free layer 3 IP network. This paper presents a novel VN design that supports dynamic, seamless addition of new resources with emphasis on scalability in a unified private IP address space. Key features of this system are: (1) Scalable connectivity via a P2P overlay with the ability to bypass overlay routing in LAN communications, (2) support for static and dynamic address allocation in conjunction with virtual nameservers through a distributed data store, and (3) support for transparent migration of IP endpoints across widearea networks.