
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration today is announcing that Open vSwitch (OVS) is now a Linux Foundation Project. Open vSwitch is an open source virtual switch designed to enable network automation while supporting standard management interfaces and protocols.
In modern data centers, networking functions are increasingly performed by software running on servers, either as part of the application or within a hypervisor. While the traditional Layer-2 Linux bridge addresses many common networking tasks, Open vSwitch was created with a robust set of features and a high performance design to address the rapidly growing needs of SDN and virtual networking use cases.
Today, OVS is used within multiple commercial products as well as large production environments. OVS has been ported to multiple virtualization platforms, switching chipsets, and networking hardware accelerators. OVS works on a wide variety of systems, including Linux, DPDK, Hyper-V, and FreeBSD. It is used in a variety of SDN applications, including NFV and network virtualization; it is the most widely used networking back-end in OpenStack.
"OVS is a great example of how open source software has enabled the networking industry to match the pace of cloud computing and help advance virtualized technologies," said Jim Zemlin, executive director, The Linux Foundation. "Hosting OVS as a Linux Foundation Project will serve to further collaboration across users and vendors and aid in open technology development throughout the networking stack."
Contributions to OVS span more than 300 individuals across companies including Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat and VMware. The governance is managed by a group of the top committers to the project with a variety of backgrounds and affiliations.
As a project hosted at The Linux Foundation, Open vSwitch will continue its operations under an open governance model and continue accepting contributions from all interested companies and developers. Those looking to participate should visit https://github.com/openvswitch/ovs/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md.
Cisco
"The Linux Foundation will make for an
excellent umbrella for the highly collaborative OVS project with a
community-based technical leadership model similar to the Linux kernel." -- Thomas Graf, Principal Software Engineer, Cisco
IBM
"We
continue to enable developers with a wide range of tools to help them
create businesses and applications, and today, Open vSwitch is now an
integral part of the Linux Foundation. It's a great move for Open
vSwitch to move to the Linux Foundation, accelerating adoption efforts
even more through open collaboration. Open vSwitch has become a critical
piece of technology to help developers and their businesses move to a
software defined and cloud development world. We look forward to
continuing to work with the Open vSwitch community in its new home of
the Linux Foundation." -- Kyle Mestery, Distinguished Engineer and Director of Open Source Networking, IBM
Red Hat
"We
are thrilled with the move of Open vSwitch to the Linux Foundation, and
believe that OVS is an important project in the open source networking
ecosystem. The governance for OVS in the Linux Foundation is lightweight
and serves as a strong example for others to follow. The OVS community
is well-aligned with and complements other community projects hosted by
the Linux Foundation, making this an ideal new home to help enable the
long-term success of the project." -- Chris Wright, Vice President and Chief Technologist, Office of Technology, Red Hat
VMware
"Having
been involved with the OVS project since 2012, it's been great to see
OVS grow into a truly community-supported effort and a critical
component of many of the world's largest data centers. Giving OVS a
formal home within the Linux Foundation is a great way to ensure
continued investment and community participation in this important open
source project." -- Bruce Davie, Chief Technology Officer, Networking, VMware, Inc.