Virtual machines are operating system instances that run alongside each other on the same physical host. The virtual machines running on a physical host are managed by a hypervisor running on the physical host. A cluster of two physical servers could have four virtual machines running across those two physical instances. Those four virtual machines can communicate over a virtual switch.

A network switch allows packets of bytes to be routed between machines. With a physical network switch, a dedicated physical device sits in the computer network to do this routing. A virtual network switch provides this packet routing without needing a dedicated physical hardware device for routing.

Open vSwitch is a distributed virtual multilayer switch. Open vSwitch provides network switching for hardware virtualization environments. Ben Pfaff is a core contributor to Open vSwitch, and he joins the show to talk about operating system virtualization. Ben was an early employee at Nicira, a company that made significant developments in software-defined networking before being acquired by VMware in 2012.

Show Notes

• Open vSwitch
• Why Open vSwitch? — Open vSwitch 2.10.90 documentation
• General — Open vSwitch 2.10.90 documentation
• What is a Virtual Switch (vSwitch)? – Definition from Techopedia
• nsdi15-paper-pfaff.pdf
• (1) Open vSwitch 2014 Fall Conference: Introductory Keynote – YouTube
• Open vSwitch – Wikipedia
• Open vSwitch Joins Linux Foundation Open Networking Ecosystem – The Linux Foundation
• Tech Talk by Ben Pfaff: Open vSwitch – Past, Present & Future – 03/20/2013 – YouTube
• Introduction to Open vSwitch : Key Components – YouTube
• An Introduction to Open vSwitch – Simon Horman – YouTube
• Open Source Networking – The Linux Foundation

The post Open vSwitch: Virtual Networking with Ben Pfaff appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.