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..
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.
Convention for heading levels in Open vSwitch documentation:
======= Heading 0 (reserved for the title in a document)
------- Heading 1
~~~~~~~ Heading 2
+++++++ Heading 3
''''''' Heading 4
Avoid deeper levels because they do not render well.
=================
Why Open vSwitch?
=================
Hypervisors need the ability to bridge traffic between VMs and with the outside
world. On Linux-based hypervisors, this used to mean using the built-in L2
switch (the Linux bridge), which is fast and reliable. So, it is reasonable to
ask why Open vSwitch is used.
The answer is that Open vSwitch is targeted at multi-server virtualization
deployments, a landscape for which the previous stack is not well suited. These
environments are often characterized by highly dynamic end-points, the
maintenance of logical abstractions, and (sometimes) integration with or
offloading to special purpose switching hardware.
The following characteristics and design considerations help Open vSwitch cope
with the above requirements.
The mobility of state
---------------------
All network state associated with a network entity (say a virtual machine)
should be easily identifiable and migratable between different hosts. This may
include traditional "soft state" (such as an entry in an L2 learning table), L3
forwarding state, policy routing state, ACLs, QoS policy, monitoring
configuration (e.g. NetFlow, IPFIX, sFlow), etc.
Open vSwitch has support for both configuring and migrating both slow
(configuration) and fast network state between instances. For example, if a VM
migrates between end-hosts, it is possible to not only migrate associated
configuration (SPAN rules, ACLs, QoS) but any live network state (including,
for example, existing state which may be difficult to reconstruct). Further,
Open vSwitch state is typed and backed by a real data-model allowing for the
development of structured automation systems.
Responding to network dynamics
------------------------------
Virtual environments are often characterized by high-rates of change. VMs
coming and going, VMs moving backwards and forwards in time, changes to the
logical network environments, and so forth.
Open vSwitch supports a number of features that allow a network control system
to respond and adapt as the environment changes. This includes simple
accounting and visibility support such as NetFlow, IPFIX, and sFlow. But
perhaps more useful, Open vSwitch supports a network state database (OVSDB)
that supports remote triggers. Therefore, a piece of orchestration software can
"watch" various aspects of the network and respond if/when they change. This is
used heavily today, for example, to respond to and track VM migrations.
Open vSwitch also supports OpenFlow as a method of exporting remote access to
control traffic. There are a number of uses for this including global network
discovery through inspection of discovery or link-state traffic (e.g. LLDP,
CDP, OSPF, etc.).
Maintenance of logical tags
----------------------------
Distributed virtual switches (such as VMware vDS and Cisco's Nexus 1000V) often
maintain logical context within the network through appending or manipulating
tags in network packets. This can be used to uniquely identify a VM (in a
manner resistant to hardware spoofing), or to hold some other context that is
only relevant in the logical domain. Much of the problem of building a
distributed virtual switch is to efficiently and correctly manage these tags.
Open vSwitch includes multiple methods for specifying and maintaining tagging
rules, all of which are accessible to a remote process for orchestration.
Further, in many cases these tagging rules are stored in an optimized form so
they don't have to be coupled with a heavyweight network device. This allows,
for example, thousands of tagging or address remapping rules to be configured,
changed, and migrated.
In a similar vein, Open vSwitch supports a GRE implementation that can handle
thousands of simultaneous GRE tunnels and supports remote configuration for
tunnel creation, configuration, and tear-down. This, for example, can be used
to connect private VM networks in different data centers.
Hardware integration
--------------------
Open vSwitch's forwarding path (the in-kernel datapath) is designed to be
amenable to "offloading" packet processing to hardware chipsets, whether housed
in a classic hardware switch chassis or in an end-host NIC. This allows for the
Open vSwitch control path to be able to both control a pure software
implementation or a hardware switch.
There are many ongoing efforts to port Open vSwitch to hardware chipsets. These
include multiple merchant silicon chipsets (Broadcom and Marvell), as well as a
number of vendor-specific platforms. The "Porting" section in the documentation
discusses how one would go about making such a port.
The advantage of hardware integration is not only performance within
virtualized environments. If physical switches also expose the Open vSwitch
control abstractions, both bare-metal and virtualized hosting environments can
be managed using the same mechanism for automated network control.
Summary
-------
In many ways, Open vSwitch targets a different point in the design space than
previous hypervisor networking stacks, focusing on the need for automated and
dynamic network control in large-scale Linux-based virtualization environments.
The goal with Open vSwitch is to keep the in-kernel code as small as possible
(as is necessary for performance) and to re-use existing subsystems when
applicable (for example Open vSwitch uses the existing QoS stack). As of Linux
3.3, Open vSwitch is included as a part of the kernel and packaging for the
userspace utilities are available on most popular distributions.
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