Open Network Featured Article

The march toward open source technologies and solutions has become pervasive in the networking world as developers look for new ways to improve network speeds and efficiencies. The open source virtual switch initiative, Open vSwitch (OVS), is one of the key networking solutions, designed to help networking keep pace with cloud computing and virtualization initiatives.

The project got a boost this month by becoming a member of the Linux Foundation (News - Alert) Collaborative Project, a major proponent of open source initiatives. The solution joins the Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter (CORD), the SDN platform OpenDaylight and the ONOS SDN network operating system at the Linux Foundation at a pivotal time for open networking, automation and virtualization.

“Having been involved with the OVS project since 2012, it’s been great to see OVS grow into a truly community-supported effort and a critical component of many of the world’s largest data centers,” said Bruce Davie, CTO of networking at VMware. “Giving OVS a formal home within the Linux Foundation is a great way to ensure continued investment and community participation in this important open source project.”

VMware is one of more than 300 companies involved with OVS, including Cisco, Ericsson (News - Alert), Huawei, HP, IBM, Intel and RedHat. The project maintains an open governance model with the goal of designing a production quality, multilayer virtual switch licensed under open source Apache 2.0. It supports network automation on a massive scale through programming extensions, while also supporting standard network management interfaces and protocols.

“While the traditional Layer-2 Linux bridge addresses many common networking tasks, Open vSwitch was created with a robust set of features and a high performance design to address the rapidly growing needs of SDN and virtual networking use cases,” said the Linux Foundation.

As data centers continue to grow to hyperscale to keep pace with cloud computing and mobility, the network is undergoing a massive transformation and OVS is poised to play a significant role. Already the default switch in XenServer 6.0 and the Xen Cloud Platform, OVS also supports Xen, KVM, Proxmox VE and VirtualBox. Offering automation, security, QoS and centralized monitoring, OVS provides all the tools and features needed to digitize and virtualize next-gen networking.