Patent ID: 7991859

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium whose contents configure a computing system to perform a method, the method comprising: under control of the configured computing system, receiving information from a first client for use in configuring a first virtual computer network for the first client, the configuring including specifying inter-connections between multiple first computing nodes of the first virtual computer network, the configuring further including specifying a first connection between the multiple first computing nodes and a virtual peering router that enables interactions with one or more other second virtual computer networks, the received information from the first client being configuration information for the first virtual computer network that specifies one or more first networking devices that are part of the specified inter-connections for the first virtual computer network; and automatically providing the configured first virtual computer network in accordance with the configuring by overlaying the first virtual computer network on a distinct substrate network without physically providing the specified first networking devices, the providing of the first virtual computer network including: establishing the first connection between the first virtual computer network and the virtual peering router, the establishing of the first connection including establishing a logical connection between at least one of the specified first networking devices of the first virtual computer network and the virtual peering router; and after the one or more second virtual computer networks have established one or more second connections to the virtual peering router, the one or more second virtual computer networks having multiple second computing nodes, forwarding a plurality of communications over the substrate network that are each sent from one of the first and second computing nodes and that are each delivered to at least one of the first and second computing nodes, the forwarding of the plurality of communications including forwarding multiple communications between the first virtual computer network and the one or more second virtual computer networks via the established first and second connections without physically providing the virtual peering router and including emulating functionality that would be provided by the virtual peering router if the virtual peering router was physically provided, and wherein the configured computing system is part of a configurable network service that provides multiple virtual computer networks to multiple remote clients, the provided multiple virtual computer networks including the first virtual computer network and the one or more second virtual computer networks.