Open vSwitch (OVS)

Open vSwitch (OVS) (openvswitch.org) is a production quality, multilayer virtual switch licensed under the open source Apache 2.0 license. It is designed to enable massive network automation through programmatic extension, while still supporting standard management interfaces and protocols (e.g. NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX, RSPAN, CLI, LACP, 802.1ag). In addition, it is designed to support distribution across multiple physical servers similar to VMware’s vNetwork distributed vswitch or Cisco’s Nexus 1000V.

Nobuhiro Miki, a software engineer at LY Corporation (lycorp.co.jp), is the author of the SRv6 feature (github.com) implemented in Open vSwitch.

Open vSwitch v3.2 was released on August 17, 2023, introducing support for SRv6. You can find the official release announcement here (openvswitch.org).