OpenFlow News

Browse on over to openvswitch.org to learn about Open vSwitch, a new open source software switching package that supports OpenFlow.  This package supports a variety of high end switch features such as VLANs, inter-virtual machine communication, NIC bonding (and of course OpenFlow!) with a focus on virtualization.  The project is quickly getting attention like this posting at Virtualization Journal.  Open vSwitch is released under the Apache2 license which allows you to develop and freely distribute your work.

The goal of the project, according to its website, is to build a production quality switch for VM environments that supports standard management interfaces (e.g. NetFlow, RSPAN, ERSPAN, IOS-like CLI), and is open to programmatic extension and control. It is designed to support distribution across multiple physical servers similar to VMWare’s distributed vswitch or Cisco’s Nexus 1000v.

Because it supports OpenFlow, Open vSwitch also provides a great way to experiment without requiring the use of dedicated hardware.  Download an open source virtual machine such as VirtualBox, start a few instances of virtual machines which Open vSwitch should permit you to connect, and you can experiment with connectivity and network control using OpenFlow.

Open vSwitch shows an exciting application of the OpenFlow protocol into the important domain of virtualization.  The flexibility that OpenFlow gives in controlling network traffic provides clear advantages for managing the rapidly growing base of virtual machine deployments.