Addressing schemes

TrueSight Network Automation supports pod-oriented addressing or container-oriented addressing, or both for containers. Use pod-oriented addressing if the administrator does not want to specify the addressing boundaries (address spaces) that the container uses. Use container-oriented addressing if the administrator wants to specify the addressing boundaries.

Specifying your own address spaces allows different containers on the same pod to have overlapping private address spaces. In pod-oriented addressing, different containers on the same pod cannot  overlap; although different containers on different pods can overlap. For information about the limitations imposed by BMC Cloud LifeCycle Management on addresses, see BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management limitations imposed on address spaces.

Pod-oriented addressing

In a pod-oriented addressing scheme, a container address pool is acquired from within a pod address range. An address range defines an address space divided up into equally-sized address pools. An address range has an address and a mask that defines the space, plus another mask that defines the size of each pool within the range. It also has a flag indicating whether the range consists of public or private pools. When the pod is created, the address pools within each range are acquired from the Internet Protocol Address Management (IPAM) device.

About specifying address ranges

The following table explains the tags for specifying address ranges in a container blueprint:

<defaultPoolMask>

<defaultPublicFlag>

<name>

The address ranges can be specified in the pod blueprint as shown below:

 <addressRangeBlueprints>
    <addressRangeBlueprint>
        <defaultPoolMask>255.255.255.192</defaultPoolMask>
        <defaultPublicFlag>false</defaultPublicFlag>
        <name>My Address Range</name>
    </addressRangeBlueprint>
</addressRangeBlueprints>

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About specifying an address range for container address pools

The address pools within a container are acquired from the address ranges in the pod on a first-come first-serve basis, according to the order they are defined within the container blueprint and are guaranteed to be the lowest available address pools in the address range.

The rangeBlueprintName tag specifies the name of the address range in the pod from which this pool should be acquired. This tag is a required attribute if the addressSpaceBlueprintName tag is not specified.

The container address pools to be acquired from an address range can be specified as shown below:

 <addressPoolBlueprints>
    <addressPoolBlueprint>
        <name>My Container Level Address Pool</name>
        <networkName>My Container Level Network</networkName>
        <rangeBlueprintName>My Address Range</rangeBlueprintName>
    </addressPoolBlueprint>
</addressPoolBlueprints>

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Container-oriented addressing

In a container-oriented addressing scheme, a container address pool is acquired from within a container address space. A container address space encompasses contiguous span of network addresses that are owned by a given container instance. An address space can be carved up into unequally sized address pools, and is different than an address range, which contains equally sized address pools. The container blueprint author can specify values for address spaces and default pool sizes of address pools acquired from the address space in the blueprint. The container administrator can also override the same values during container creation time.

Container-oriented addressing is sometimes referred to as multi-tenant IP Address Management (IPAM), because it allows each container to have its own private address space which can overlap the address space of other containers on the same pod.

Types of address spaces

A container blueprint can have the following types of container address spaces:

• Infrastructure-oriented address space: Contains address pools that are used exclusively for infrastructure addresses.
  • It is a private address space, which means address pools acquired would have a container name as the scope.
  • A container administrator is not required to override the values of address space and pool size by default.
• Provision-oriented address space: Contains address pools that must be used for provisioned addresses (VM NICs, VIPs, or SNAT blocks), but they can also be used for infrastructure addresses as needed.
  • It can be a public (it is unique within an address provider) or private address space (unique across each container).
  • A container administrator is allowed to override the values of address space and pool size by default.

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About specifying address spaces

The following table describes the tags for specifying address spaces in a container blueprint.

<allowOverride>

<defaultNetworkAddress>

<defaultNetworkMask>

<defaultPublicFlag>

<description>

<name>

An infrastructure-oriented address space can be specified in the container blueprint as follows:

 <addressSpaceBlueprints>
    <addressSpaceBlueprint xsi:type="infrastructureAddressSpaceBlueprint" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
        <allowOverride>false</allowOverride>
        <defaultNetworkAddress>172.21.128.0</defaultNetworkAddress>
        <defaultNetworkMask>255.255.255.0</defaultNetworkMask>
        <description>Infrastructure address space </description>
        <name>privateInfrastructure</name>
    </addressSpaceBlueprint>
....
....
</addressSpaceBlueprints>

A provision-oriented address space can be specified in the container blueprint as follows:

 <addressSpaceBlueprints>
    <addressSpaceBlueprint xsi:type="provisioningAddressSpaceBlueprint" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
        <defaultNetworkAddress>172.21.128.1</defaultNetworkAddress>
        <defaultNetworkMask>255.255.255.0</defaultNetworkMask>
        <description>Provisioning address space </description>
        <name>privateProvisioning</name>
        <defaultPublicFlag>false</defaultPublicFlag>
    </addressSpaceBlueprint>
....
....
</addressSpaceBlueprints>

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About specifying address spaces for container address pools

The following table explains the tags for the specifying address spaces for container address pools in blueprint:

The container address pools that are acquired from address spaces can be specified as follows:

 <addressPoolBlueprints>
    <addressPoolBlueprint>
        <addressSpaceBlueprintName>privateInfrastructure</addressSpaceBlueprintName>
        <defaultPoolSize>50</defaultPoolSize>
        <name>A_SVC</name>
    </addressPoolBlueprint>
</addressPoolBlueprints>

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About overriding address spaces values and address pool size

The container administrator can override the following while creating and configuring the container:

• The network address and network mask for infrastructure-oriented address spaces that have the allowOverride tag set to true.
• The network address, network mask, and public flag for private provision-oriented address spaces.
• The network address and network mask should be provided for public provision-oriented address spaces.
• The pool size of address pools that are acquired from address spaces.

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About creation of an address pool of a given pool size

Based on the default pool size specified in the container blueprint or the one specified during creating and configuring the container, TrueSight Network Automation creates the address pool as explained below:

1. Calculates the size of the subnet that is closest to specified pool size. For example, for a specified pool size of 10, the size of the closet subnet would be 16 as (2 ⁴ is closest to 10).
2. Based on the size of the subnet, it calculates the subnet mask for the pool. For example, for a specified pool size of 10, the subnet mask would be /28 (CIDR) (32 – 4).
3. Based on the calculated subnet mask, it acquires an address pool from the address space.

Address space settings for importing/exporting a container blueprint

This section describes the address space settings for the importing/exporting of a container blueprint.

Settings to export a container blueprint

• The default network address of address space blueprint is assembled in dotted decimal representation.
• The default network mask of address space blueprint is assembled in CIDR notation.

Settings to import a container blueprint

• The default network address of address space blueprint in dotted decimal representation is distributed to text representation.
• The default network mask of address space blueprint in dotted decimal or CIDR representation is distributed to text representation.

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Address space settings for importing/exporting a container

This section describes the address space settings for the importing/exporting of a container.

Settings to export a container

• The network address of address space is assembled in dotted decimal representation.
• The network mask of address space is assembled in CIDR notation.
• Instead of exporting the address space instance for address pool, only the address space name is exported.

Settings to import a container

• The network address of address space in dotted decimal representation is distributed to text representation.
• The network mask of address space in dotted decimal or CIDR representation is distributed to text representation.
• The pools which have a populated address space name are acquired from the address space.

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BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management limitations imposed on address spaces

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management imposes the following limitations on address spaces created in TrueSight Network Automation:

• Infrastructure address spaces cannot be overridden.
  • Pod level addresses cannot be overridden. 
  • Container level spaces can be any address, and can be the same as other containers.
•  An address pool can only refer to one address space.

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