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HaaS Architecture Overview

The HaaS (Hardware as a Service) is a tool used to perform network isolation of physical machines, so that different parties can be given physical capacity within the same data center, without needing to trust each other.

Operation

From a user's perspective, the HaaS allows one to:

  • allocate physical nodes
  • create login/management nodes (sometimes called headnodes)
  • configure networks, in particular:
    • create logical networks
    • connect physical nodes to those logical networks (on a per-nic basis)
  • connect login/management nodes to those networks.

Right now, we're using 802.1q VLANs to achieve network isolation. The HaaS communicates with a managed switch, to which the physical hardware is attached. When networking operations are performed, the HaaS sends commands to the switch which configure the relevant ports as needed to create the logical networks.

Anatomy of a Running Installation

                          SWITCH
                       _____________
  <nic1>---------------] access{N} |
=node-1=               |           |
  <nic2>---------------]           |
                       |           |
                       |           |             (                                      )
                       |           |             (    ^br-vlanM^------^trunk-nic.M^     )
  <nic1>---------------] access{M} |             ( %hn-B%                               )
=node-2=               |           |             (                                      )
  <nic2>---------------]           |             ( %hn-A%                               )
                       |           |             (    ^br-vlanN^------^trunk-nic.N^     )
                       |           |             (                                      )
                       |           |             (                                      )
  <nic1>---------------]     trunk [--------<trunk-nic>=haas-master=
=node-3=               |           |
  <nic2>---------------]___________[

    Legend:

        ( running in software )
        <physical network interface>
        ^virtual/logical network interface^
        =physical node=
        %virtualized node%
        ]/[ switch's Ethernet ports
        --- connection (virtual or physical)
        access{X} Denotes that the adjacent port is set to access mode, with vlan #X.
        trunk Denotes that the adjacent port is set to trunk mode.

A typical installation of the HaaS will have the following components:

  • The HaaS API server and headnode VM host
  • A managed switch
  • One or more physical nodes, each of which has one or more network interfaces.

These components will be configured as follows:

  • All of the physical nodes will have some subset (possibly all) of their nics connected to the managed switch.
    • The ports that these are connected to will be set to access mode.
  • The HaaS headnode host will have one nic connected to the managed switch.
    • The corresponding port will be set to trunk mode, with all vlans enabled.
  • The HaaS master will be running the libvirt daemon, which will have at least one VM, powered off, which can be cloned and started to provide login/management nodes.
  • A network object in the HaaS corresponds to a vlan id. (In future versions, we will also allow other mechanisms, such as VXLAN.) Network operations have the following effects
    • Ports added to the network will have their access vlan set to the vlan id associated with the network.
    • Ports removed from the network will be set to access no vlans.