Open vSwitch: Features

Open vSwitch supports the following features:

• Visibility into inter-VM communication via NetFlow, sFlow(R), IPFIX, SPAN, RSPAN, and GRE-tunneled mirrors
• LACP (IEEE 802.1AX-2008)
• Standard 802.1Q VLAN model with trunking
• Multicast snooping
• IETF Auto-Attach SPBM and rudimentary required LLDP support
• BFD and 802.1ag link monitoring
• STP (IEEE 802.1D-1998) and RSTP (IEEE 802.1D-2004)
• Fine-grained QoS control
• Support for HFSC qdisc
• Per VM interface traffic policing
• 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 (GRE, VXLAN, STT, and Geneve, with IPsec support)
• Remote configuration protocol with C and Python bindings
• Kernel and user-space forwarding engine options
• Multi-table forwarding pipeline with flow-caching engine
• Forwarding layer abstraction to ease porting to new software and hardware platforms