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Distributed Overlay Virtual Ethernet

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Distributed Overlay Virtual Ethernet (DOVE) is a tunneling and virtualization technology for computer networks, created and backed by IBM. DOVE allows creation of network virtualization layers for deploying, controlling, and managing multiple independent and isolated network applications over a shared physical network infrastructure.[1]

Overview

The tunneling format is decoupled from the logical network view offered by DOVE, and defines only the way frames are encapsulated to be transferred by the underlying network infrastructure. As a notable difference from other network virtualization solutions (such as OTV), this allows DOVE not to be limited to providing OSI layer 2 emulation only (for example, passing Ethernet frames).[1]

Logical components of the DOVE are DOVE controllers and DOVE switches (dSwitch, DOVES). DOVE controllers perform management functions, and one part of the control plane functions across DOVE switches. DOVE switches perform encapculation of layer 2 frames into UDP packets (using VXLAN frame format for encapsulation), and provide virtual interfaces for virtual machines to plug into (similar to physical Ethernet switches providing ports for NIC connections). DOVE switches are running as part of virtual machine hypervisors.[1][2][3]

Advantages

Primary advantages of DOVE include the following:[4]

  • no dependency of underlying physical network and protocols
  • usage of the existing IP network infrastructure
  • no addresses of virtual machines are present in Ethernet switches (reduced MAC table size, less complex STP)
  • no VLAN limitations (more than 16 million separate networks, compared to 4000)
  • no dependency on IP multicast traffic.

Implementations

As of November 2013, DOVE components are implemented as part of VMware's hypervisors, while implementation for the Linux KVM is planned.[5][6]

DOVE extensions for VXLAN have been merged on 18 February 2013 into version 3.8 of the Linux kernel mainline,[7][8] with appropriate userspace configuration extensions added on 21 February 2013 into version 3.8.0 of the iproute2.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Liane Lewin-Eytan; Katherine Barabash; Rami Cohen; Vinit Jain; Anna Levin (2011-08-28). "Designing Modular Overlay Solutions for Network Virtualization" (PDF). IBM Research Division. Retrieved 2013-11-22.
  2. ^ Renato Recio (2012). "Distributed Overlay Virtual Ethernet (DOVE) Networks" (PDF). IBM Corporation. Retrieved 2013-11-22.
  3. ^ Shamus McGillicuddy (2012). "IBM DOVE: Big Blue enters the network virtualization battleground". techtarget.com. Retrieved 2013-11-22. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Thomas Richter (2013-10-21). "Software Defined Networking using VXLAN" (PDF). LinuxCon Edinburgh. IBM Research and Development, Linux Technology Center. Retrieved 2013-11-22.
  5. ^ Jack Clark (2013-03-27). "IBM unfurls SDN network manager". theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-11-22.
  6. ^ "Open DOVE project proposal" (PDF). IBM System Networking. 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-22.
  7. ^ "Linux kernel 3.8". kernelnewbies.org. 2013-02-18. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
  8. ^ "Add DOVE extensions for VXLAN". kernel.org. 2012-11-20. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
  9. ^ Stephen Hemminger (2013-02-21). "iproute2 3.8.0". LWN.net. Retrieved 2013-11-23.
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