Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 Overview  





2 Features  





3 See also  





4 References  





5 External links  














Open vSwitch






Deutsch
Español
فارسی
Hrvatski
עברית

Polski
Русский
Українська
 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 




In other projects  



Wikimedia Commons
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


Initial releaseJuly 29, 2009; 14 years ago (2009-07-29)[1]
Stable release

3.3.1[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 7 June 2024; 45 days ago (7 June 2024)

Repository
Written inC
Operating systemLinux, Hyper-V, FreeBSD and NetBSD
TypeVirtual network switch
LicenseApache License 2.0
Websitewww.openvswitch.org

Open vSwitch (OVS) is an open-source implementation of a distributed virtual multilayer switch. The main purpose of Open vSwitch is to provide a switching stack for hardware virtualization environments, while supporting multiple protocols and standards used in computer networks.[3]

The project's source code is distributed under the terms of Apache License 2.0.

Overview

[edit]
Open vSwitch deployed as a cross-server virtual network switch, transparently distributed across multiple physical servers.[3]

Open vSwitch is a software implementation of a virtual multilayer network switch, designed to enable effective network automation through programmatic extensions, while supporting standard management interfaces and protocols such as NetFlow, sFlow, SPAN, RSPAN, CLI, LACP and 802.1ag. In addition, Open vSwitch is designed to support transparent distribution across multiple physical servers by enabling creation of cross-server switches in a way that abstracts out the underlying server architecture, similar to the VMware vNetwork distributed vswitch or Cisco Nexus 1000V.[4][5][6]

Open vSwitch can operate both as a software-based network switch running within a virtual machine (VM) hypervisor, and as the control stack for dedicated switching hardware; as a result, it has been ported to multiple virtualization platforms, switching chipsets, and networking hardware accelerators.[7] Open vSwitch is the default network switch in the XenServer virtualization platform since its version 6.0,[8] and in the Xen Cloud Platform via its XAPI management toolstack.[9] It also supports Xen, Linux KVM, Proxmox VE and VirtualBox hypervisors, while a port to Hyper-V is also available.[10] Open vSwitch has also been integrated into various cloud computing software platforms and virtualization management systems, including OpenStack, openQRM, OpenNebula and oVirt.[4][5]

The Linux kernel implementation of Open vSwitch was merged into the kernel mainline in kernel version 3.3, which was released on March 18, 2012;[11][12] official Linux packages are available for Debian, Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu.[4] As of January 2014, FreeBSD and NetBSD implementations are also available, with the NetBSD's implementation operating completely in userspace.[13][14][15]

The majority of the Open vSwitch source code is written in platform-independent C language, which provides easy portability to various environments. The source code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.[4]

Features

[edit]

As of September 2015, features provided by Open vSwitch include the following:[16][17]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "A complete list of Open vSwitch releases". openvswitch.org. Archived from the original on November 9, 2017. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
  • ^ "Release 3.3.1". June 7, 2024. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  • ^ a b M. Tim Jones (October 27, 2010). "Virtual networking in Linux". IBM. Retrieved April 9, 2014.
  • ^ a b c d "Open vSwitch: An Open Virtual Switch". openvswitch.org. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
  • ^ a b Thomas Graf (April 24, 2013). "Underneath OpenStack Quantum: Software Defined Networking with Open vSwitch" (PDF). Red Hat. Retrieved April 9, 2014.
  • ^ Ralf Spenneberg. "Virtual switching with Open vSwitch". admin-magazine.com. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
  • ^ "Tilera Launches Open Virtual Switch Solution (OVS) to Accelerate NFV and SDN". Marketwired. February 24, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  • ^ "XenServer 6.0 Release Notes". Citrix Systems. March 8, 2012. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  • ^ "XAPI: Open source software to build private and public clouds". xenproject.org. 2013. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  • ^ Alessandro Pilotti (May 22, 2014). "Open vSwitch on Hyper-V". cloudbase.it. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  • ^ "Linux kernel 3.3, Section 1.3. Open vSwitch". kernelnewbies.org. March 18, 2012. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
  • ^ Jonathan Corbet (November 30, 2011). "Routing Open vSwitch into the mainline". LWN.net. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
  • ^ "FreshPorts – net/openvswitch". freshports.org. December 30, 2013. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
  • ^ Gaetano Catalli (November 7, 2011). "Open vSwitch: performance improvement and porting to FreeBSD" (PDF). ucl.ac.be. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2016. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  • ^ "openvswitch/ovs: ovs/INSTALL.NetBSD at master". github.com. January 11, 2014. Archived from the original on April 9, 2014. Retrieved April 9, 2014.
  • ^ "Open vSwitch: Features". openvswitch.org. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
  • ^ Jesse Gross (September 2013). "Programmable Networking with Open vSwitch" (PDF). linuxfoundation.org. LinuxCon. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 6, 2016. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
  • ^ Justin Pettit; Ben Pfaff; Ethan Jackson (November 13, 2014). "Accelerating Open vSwitch to 'Ludicrous Speed'". networkheresy.com. Retrieved May 26, 2015.
  • ^ Jesse Gross (August 21, 2014). "The Evolution of Open vSwitch" (PDF). events.linuxfoundation.org. LinuxCon. pp. 6, 13–17. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
  • [edit]
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Open_vSwitch&oldid=1234112558"

    Categories: 
    Free software programmed in C
    Linux Foundation projects
    Local area networks
    Network architecture
    Software using the Apache license
    Hidden categories: 
    Articles with short description
    Short description matches Wikidata
    Use mdy dates from August 2014
    Articles containing potentially dated statements from January 2014
    All articles containing potentially dated statements
    Articles containing potentially dated statements from September 2015
    Commons category link is on Wikidata
    Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia
     



    This page was last edited on 12 July 2024, at 17:05 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki