open vswitch musings
chris wright
VP and Chief Technologist
@kernelcdub
Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.
what informs my perspective?
16 years in open source
10 years at Red Hat
7 years in network virtualization
5 years in OVS
4 years in OpenStack
3 years in OpenDaylight
2 years in DPDK
1 year in container networking
who informs my perspective?
networking is the solution
willing to deal with pain
sophisticated user
networking is the problem
want something that just works
compentencies elsewhere
virtualization changed
the datacenter
VMs directly connected to the network
focus on L2 adjacency
dynamic placement
live migration
increase in east-west
inconsistent policy
virtual I/O performance
state of the art
at the time...
Linux bridge
VLANs
virtio
emerging
SR-IOV
VEPA
VM-FEX
OpenFlow
enter OVS
programmable multi-layer switch
using openflow and ovsdb
often used in an overlay
out-of-tree
tc vs ovs
ovs in the datacenter
OpenStack Neutron adoption rates growing
Neutron typically deployed with OVS
OVS typically deployed as overlay (GRE or VXLAN)
Users want security groups
Users want load balancers
Operators want scale
ovs in telco
Virtualizing the telco network
PNF -> VNF
performance is paramount
DPDK
service chaining
OVS plus hardware
hardware VTEP
SR-IOV
dedicated ASIC
NPU
OVS future thoughts
complexity slows adoption
extensibility
forks
governance
tc, eBPF, and P4
L3 and up
overlays
edge
ovn