Monitoring and policy control of distributed data and control planes for virtual nodes

A method comprising:

• executing a plurality of virtual machines on a computing device, each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines configured to provide control plane functionality for at least a different respective subset of physical forwarding units of a network device, the computing device distinct from the network device;
• determining, by a policy agent executing on the computing device, that a particular virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines provides control plane functionality for one or more physical forwarding units of a network device;
• determining, by the policy agent, control plane usage metrics for resources of the particular virtual machine;
• and
• outputting, to a policy controller, (i) data associated with the control plane usage metrics for resources of the particular virtual machine and (ii) data associating the particular virtual machine with a unique identifier of the physical forwarding units for which the particular virtual machine provides control plane functionality, wherein the data associating the particular virtual machine with the unique identifier enables the policy controller to correlate the control plane usage metrics for resources of the particular virtual machine with data plane usage metrics for resources of the one or more physical forwarding units of the network device, wherein the one or more physical forwarding units of the network device and the particular virtual machine form a single virtual routing node that appears, to external network devices, as a single physical routing node in a network.

Non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, cause the at least one processor to:

• execute a plurality of virtual machines on the computing device, each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines configured to provide control plane functionality for at least a different respective subset of physical forwarding units of a network device, the computing device distinct from the network device;
• determine that a particular virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines provides control plane functionality for one or more physical forwarding units of a network device;
• determine control plane usage metrics for resources of the particular virtual machine;
• and
• output (i) data associated with the control plane usage metrics for resources of the particular virtual machine and (ii) data associating the particular virtual machine with a unique identifier of the one or more physical forwarding units for which the particular virtual machine provides control plane functionality, wherein the data associating the particular virtual machine with the unique identifier enables a policy controller to correlate the control plane usage metrics for resources of the particular virtual machine with data plane usage metrics for resources of the one or more physical forwarding units of the network device, wherein the one or more physical forwarding units of the network device and the particular virtual machine form a single virtual routing node that appears, to external network devices, as a single physical routing node in a network.