Open vSwitch: production quality, multilayer open virtual switch
Open vSwitch is a production quality, multilayer virtual switch licensed under the open source Apache 2.0 license. It is designed to enable massive network automation through programmatic extension, while still supporting standard management interfaces and protocols (e.g. NetFlow, sFlow, RSPAN, ERSPAN, CLI, LACP, 802.1ag). In addition, it is designed to support distribution across multiple physical servers similar to VMware's vNetwork distributed vswitch or Cisco's Nexus 1000V.
Key Features * Visibility into inter-VM communication via NetFlow, sFlow(R), SPAN, RSPAN, and ERSPAN* LACP (IEEE 802.1AX-2008)
* Standard 802.1Q VLAN model with trunking
* 802.1ag link monitoring
* Fine-grained min/max rate QoS
* NIC bonding with source-MAC load balancing, active backup, and L4 hashing
* OpenFlow protocol support (including many extensions for virtualization)
* IPv6 support
* Multiple tunneling protocols (Ethernet over GRE, CAPWAP, IPsec, GRE over IPsec)
Supported Platforms Open vSwitch can operate both as a soft switch running within the hypervisor, and as the control stack for switching silicon. It has been ported to multiple virtualization platforms and switching chipsets. It is the default switch in XenServer "Project Boston", the Xen Cloud Platform and also supports Xen, KVM, Proxmox VE and VirtualBox. It has also been integrated into many virtual management systems including OpenStack, openQRM, and OpenNebula.
