That's what I decided to do with one of the subjects already and this will be the part I. I want to write about the challenge of networking virtual machines, and go through the various options considering pros and cons and where different solutions fit.
As always, the writing represents my opinions only, and are based on my limited knowledge of the subject. On this first part I review the challenges of networking for virtual machines and talk about what others write about it. Then on part II I will talk more about Soft Switching economics and where I think it fits and on part III I will do a similar thing about the hardware approach (VM-FEX). Finally, I am planning a part IV with details of current VM-FEX implementation on Cisco Nexus switches.
The Challenge of Networking in Virtualized Environments
Much has been written about this topic and as a networking-head fully involved with virtualization I find it so interesting that I spend quite some time reading and thinking about it. Finding the free time to write about it is another story.
There is no doubt that it is a challenge. Networking a large number of servers isn't that easy a task already, but with Virtualization you have to add the challenge of a much denser number of endpoints (the VMs) on the network, and also the mobility aspect of virtual machines to complicate matters. But scale and mobility are just two of the dimensions to this problem, with security, performance and manageability probably being the other top ones.
In general, I believe there are two approaches to solving the challenge of networking in virtualized environments: software based solutions, integrated into the hypervisor, and hardware based solutions seeking to off-load switching from the hypervisor. I think both have a place.
Martin Casado, the network heretic, has written much about why he thinks soft-switching "kicks mucho ass" and will be the winning solution. He dislikes solutions which leverage NIC virtualization (SR-IOV, 802.1BR) or those which force traffic to be pushed off of the server to have it hair-pinned if needed (802.1BR, 802.1bg). Many other bloggers have bashed tagging based solutions (i.e. 802.1BR) saying they aren't needed and they are just another attempt from hardware vendors to sell more and new hardware. It is undeniable that vendors develop technology hoping to get a profit from it, and it's quite a legitimate thing to do as well in my opinion, but I am dead sure that no vendor develops a technology to force a customer upgrade. Plain simple: if the technology isn't solving a problem, it wont sell. People isn't stupid.
The problem we are solving (networking in highly virtualized environments) accepts multiple solutions, and it is quite different for different people. I think we can distinct two big type of organizations: IaaS service providers and Virtualized deployments in Enterprise space (i.e. Private Clouds). In the first type of customers, soft-switching may have an edge, while on the second hardware switching can be more interesting.
Casado dislikes hardware switching and I think has a good case on this for cloud service providers as I just mentioned. The best way to understand why he dislikes those hardware based options and thinks soft-switching will prevail are well explained in his blogs (which I recommend reading entirely, there's four parts), but in a nutshell he believes that software will always be feature-richer and with the performance and low price per core today the economics of soft-switching are ideal.
I disagree with him to some extent. Certainly to the extent of scoping the analysis to the entire industry. I think his analysis considers only a part of the industry, and that both options (soft and hard switching) will have its place and space to bring solutions to virtualized server networking. Let's see if I can explain why I think this way in the subsequent posts. Then I will explain the benefit of hardware based solutions and how they work.
I must stress again that my writing on this blog is done in my free time and reflects only my own personal interests and opinions.
