Virtual machines in a packet switching device

摘要

In one embodiment, a packet switching device creates multiple virtual packet switching devices within the same physical packet switching device using virtual machines and sharing particular physical resources of the packet switching device. One embodiment uses this functionality to change the operating version (e.g., upgrade or downgrade) of the packet switching device by originally operating according to a first operating version, operating according to both a first and second operating version, and then ceasing operating according to the first operating version. Using such a technique, a packet switching device can be upgraded or downgraded while fully operating (e.g., without having to reboot line cards and route processing engines).

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
operating each particular physical line card of a plurality of physical line cards of a physical packet switching device according to a first operating version, which includes running a first line card routing instance virtual machine maintaining forwarding information for forwarding packets using the first operating version on said particular physical line card, and processing packets by one or more physical network processors operating based on microcode according to the first operating version on said particular physical line card; operating a physical route processor engine according to the first operating version, which includes running a first route processing routing instance virtual machine maintaining a first routing information base including exchanging routing information with other packet switching devices, and deriving and providing said forwarding information based on the first routing information base to each said first line card routing instance virtual machine; communicating packets among the plurality of physical line cards and physical route processor engine; while said operating each of the plurality of physical line cards according to the first operating version, running a second line card routing instance virtual machine maintaining forwarding information for forwarding packets using a second operating version on each of the plurality of physical line cards; and while said operating the physical route processor engine according to the first operating version, running a second route processing routing instance virtual machine maintaining a second routing information base, and deriving and providing forwarding information based on the second routing information base to each said second line card routing instance virtual machine.