openvswitch/ovs

Features

• Software-Defined Networking Services - Provides a software-defined networking platform to programmatically define and update network forwarding rules.
• OpenFlow Virtual Switches - Implements a software-defined network switch using the OpenFlow protocol to decouple control and data planes.
• Layer 2 Tunnels - Encapsulates Ethernet frames to extend virtual layer 2 networks across physical layer 3 boundaries.
• OpenFlow Control Protocols - Implements the OpenFlow protocol to decouple the control plane from the data plane for programmable network forwarding.
• Network Traffic Routing - Directs data across virtual networks using a protocol supporting multiple tables and tag matching.
• Overlay Networks - Connects virtual machines across physical hosts using encapsulated tunnels to create a unified logical overlay network.
• Forwarding Controllers - Exposes network forwarding functions to programmatic control via standardized management interfaces.
• Packet Processing Frameworks - Provides a programmable framework for routing packets through a sequence of tables and actions for complex header manipulation.
• Pipeline-Based Packet Routing - Directs packets to specific ports, controllers, or queues using a pipeline of processing actions.
• SDN Data Planes - Provides a high-performance packet processing engine with hardware offloading and kernel-bypass capabilities.
• Traffic Tunnels - Encapsulates network data streams within transport protocols to extend virtual networks across physical servers.
• Tunneling Gateways - Functions as a network tunneling gateway to extend virtual networks across physical hosts via VXLAN and GRE.
• Virtual Layer 2 Switches - Functions as a virtualized switching platform managing VLANs and packet forwarding for virtual machines and containers.
• Virtual Local Area Networks - Implements virtual local area networks to isolate traffic and prevent interference between virtual machines.
• Datapath Splits - Separates the high-level control plane in userspace from the fast-path packet forwarding performed in the kernel.
• Virtual Network Management - Manages virtual network interfaces, bonds physical links, and implements VLAN segmentation for virtualized environments.
• Switch Configuration Management - Provides a command-line interface for controlling switch processes, loading kernel modules, and managing system settings.
• Schema-Based Data Models - Uses a schema-based system within its transactional database to manage switch settings and enforce structural integrity.
• Database Replication - Synchronizes configuration data across multiple servers to ensure high availability of the switch state.
• Configuration Transaction Engines - Utilizes a transactional, schema-based configuration database to ensure consistency across switch clusters.
• Poll-Mode Drivers - Uses poll-mode drivers to bypass the kernel network stack, achieving higher throughput and lower latency.
• Transactional Configuration Storage - Implements a transactional database for persistent storage of switch settings, accessible via C and Python bindings.
• Hardware Switching Offload - Provides interfaces to extend software-defined networking capabilities to physical hardware-level switching.
• Network Diagnostics - Traces packet paths and samples flows to analyze behavior and debug connectivity issues in virtual networks.
• Network Traffic Management - Manages bandwidth and prioritizes specific data flows using quality of service policies and rate limiting.
• Network Interface Bonding - Implements standard bonding protocols to combine multiple physical interfaces into a single logical link.
• Network Task Offloads - Offloads checksum calculations and segment processing from the CPU to network hardware.
• Hardware-Accelerated Packet Forwarding - Offloads packet matching and forwarding rules to physical NIC hardware for line-rate performance.
• Packet Manipulation Toolkits - Modifies, strips, or adds network layer fields to packets during the switching process.
• Connection State Management - Tracks the state and history of network connections to manage packet flow based on session state.
• Traffic Rate Limiters - Enforces bandwidth policies to cap the maximum data rate for specific network ports or flows.
• Virtual Machine Connectivity - Establishes secure private tunnels to connect remote virtual machines across different physical hosts.
• Access Control Lists - Implements access control lists to filter network traffic based on specific permit or deny criteria.
• Traffic Isolation - Implements network-level traffic isolation to segregate virtual machine communication and ensure tenant privacy.
• Encrypted Tunneling - Secures data transmission between switches using encryption protocols to ensure authenticity and privacy.
• Firewalls - Implements firewalling actions and connection tracking to secure network data flows.
• Secure Tunneling - Encrypts tunnel data using IPsec to ensure privacy and integrity for traffic between switches.
• Traffic Shaping and Prioritization - Configures quality of service policies and policing to manage bandwidth and prioritize critical traffic.
• Network Traffic Analysis - Analyzes packet flow using sampling and tracing tools to diagnose network behavior.
• sFlow Monitoring - Supports network packet sampling and flow data export via sFlow for real-time traffic analysis.
• Packet Path Tracing - Tracks individual packet movements through the switch to diagnose forwarding logic and connectivity issues.

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