Weighted NAPT Selection

https://git.opendaylight.org/gerrit/#/q/topic:weighted-napt-selection

Brief introduction of the feature.

Problem description

NATService needs to select a Designated NAPT switch amongst different switches hosting VMs in a given VRF. Currently this selection uses a round robin algorithm which treats all switches as equals. A switch that is selected as Designated NAPT gets all external traffic from VMs in that VRF, thus putting extra load on that switch. Since selection of NAPT is runtime decision it is not possible to scale-up such switches.

To solve this problem we need a mechanism to make NAPT selection logic pick particular switches which can handle extra traffic, more over ones that can’t. Administrator should be able to mark such switches at deployment.

Use Cases

Main use case is to allow admin to specify configuration for specific computes so they are more likely to be selected as Designated NAPT Switches. Following use cases will be supported as part of initial feature.

  • Configuration of switch with weight to pin more VRFs to it

  • Add a switch with more weight than existing switches in VRF

  • Remove a switch with higher weight and add it back in

Note

No changes will be made to triggers for NAPT Selection for initial release This means following use cases will not be supported yet.

  • Addition of switch with higher weight will not result in re-distribution of VRFs.

  • Decreasing/Increasing weight of a switch will not trigger r-distribution of VRFs.

Proposed change

We’ll introduce a new configuration parameter called odl_base_weight which will be configured in external_ids parameter of Open_vSwitch in specific switches. This will be part of 0-day orchestration. Value for this will be a number. If nothing is configured bas weight will be considered to be 0.

Higher the odl_base_weight, greater the number of VRFs designated on a given switch.

NAPTSwitchSelector will be modified to factor in this parameter when selecting a designate NAPT switch. Currently weight of a given switch is only number of VRFs hosted on it with base weight of 0. Weight of switch is incremented by 1 for each VRF hosted on it. Switch with least weight at time of selection ends up being selected as designated Switch. odl_base_weight of X will translate to weight -X in NAPTSwitchSelector.

Configuration impact

A new configuration parameter called odl_base_weight which can be configured in external_ids parameter of Open_vSwitch for specific switches.

Refer section [Proposed Change] for more details.

Other Infra considerations

Requires new API in Genius.

Scale and Performance Impact

Selecting switches that can handle extra traffic that SNAT brings in will help with dataplane performance

Usage

How will end user use this feature? Primary focus here is how this feature will be used in an actual deployment.

e.g. For most netvirt features this will include OpenStack APIs.

This section will be primary input for Test and Documentation teams. Along with above this should also capture REST API and CLI.

Features to Install

odl-netvirt-openstack

REST API

None.

CLI

None.

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Who is implementing this feature? In case of multiple authors, designate a primary assignee and other contributors.

Primary assignee:

Vishal Thapar, vthapar, <vishal.thapar@ericsson.com>

Other contributors:

<developer-b>, <irc nick>, <email>

Work Items

Break up work into individual items. This should be a checklist on a Trello card for this feature. Provide the link to the trello card or duplicate it.

Testing

TBD.

Unit Tests

Any existing UTs will be enhanced accordingly.

Integration Tests

Any existing UTs will be enhanced accordingly.

CSIT

Following test cases will be added to NAT suite:

  • Test NAPT base weight 0 * This should work like existing logic

  • Test NAPT base weight 2 * Create 4 VMs in 2 VRFs on both computes * Compute with base weight 2 is designated for both VRFs

Documentation Impact

Refer section [Configuration Changes]

References

None.