Network virtualization: Difference between revisions

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{{shortShort description|combining hardware and software networkCombining resources and network functionality into a single administrative entity}}

{{More footnotes needed|date=November 2024}}

In computing, '''network virtualization''' or '''network virtualisation''' is the process of combining hardware and software network resources and network functionality into a single, software-based administrative entity, a '''virtual network'''. Network virtualization involves [[Hardware virtualization|platform virtualization]], often combined with resource virtualization.

{{Use American English|date=March 2021}}

In computing, '''network virtualization''' or '''network virtualisation''' is the process of combining hardware and software network resources and network functionality into a single, software-based administrative entity, a '''virtual network'''. Network virtualization involves [[Hardware virtualization|platform virtualization]], often combined with resource virtualization.

Network virtualization is categorized as either '''external virtualization''', combining many networks or parts of networks into a virtual unit, or '''internal virtualization''', providing network-like functionality to software containers on a single network [[Server (computing)|server]].

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* Network storage devices

* Network machine-to-machine elements, such as telecommunications devices

* Network mobile elements, such as laptop computers, tablet computers, and smart phonessmartphones

* Network media, such as [[Ethernet]] and [[Fibre Channel]]

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External network virtualization combines or subdivides one or more [[local area network]]s (LANs) into virtual networks to improve a large network's or data center's efficiency. A virtual local area network (VLAN) and [[network switch]] comprise the key components. Using this technology, a [[system administrator]] can configure systems physically attached to the same local network into separate virtual networks. Conversely, an administrator can combine systems on separate [[local area network]]s (LANs) into a single VLAN spanning segments of a large network.

External network virtualization is envisioned to be placed in the middle of the network stack and help integrating different architectures proposed for next generation networks.<ref>P. Martinez-Julia, A. F. Skarmeta, A. Galis. "Towards a Secure Network Virtualization Architecture for the Future Internet" Future Internet Assembly, 2013, {{doi|10.1007/978-3-642-38082-2_12}}.</ref>

== Internal virtualization ==

'''Internal network virtualization''' configures a single system with [[Operating system–level virtualization|software container]]s, such as [[Xen]] [[hypervisor]] control programs, or pseudo-interfaces, such as a [[OpenSolaris Network Virtualization and Resource Control#VNIC|VNIC]], to emulate a physical network with software. This can improve a single system's efficiency by isolating applications to separate containers or pseudo-interfaces.<ref>A. Galis, S. Clayman, A. Fischer, A. Paler, Y. Al-Hazmi, H. De Meer, A. Cheniour, O. Mornard, J. Patrick Gelas and L. Lefevre, et al. "Future Internet Management Platforms for Network Virtualisation and Service Clouds"- ServiceWave 2010, December 2010, http://servicewave.eu/2010/joint-demonstration-evening/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140731160210/http://servicewave.eu/2010/joint-demonstration-evening/ |date=2014-07-31 }} and in "Towards A Service-Based Internet" Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2010, Volume 6481/2010, 235-237, {{doi|10.1007/978-3-642-17694-4_39}}</ref>

=== Examples ===

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== Wireless network virtualization ==

Wireless network virtualization can have a very broad scope ranging from spectrum sharing, infrastructure virtualization, to air interface virtualization. Similar to wired network virtualization, in which physical infrastructure owned by one or more providers can be shared among multiple service providers, wireless network virtualization needs the physical wireless infrastructure and radio resources to be abstracted and isolated to a number of virtual resources, which then can be offered to different service providers. In other words, virtualization, regardless of wired or wireless networks, can be considered as a process splitting the entire network system. However, the distinctive properties of the wireless environment, in terms of time-various channels, attenuation, mobility, broadcast, etc., make the problem more complicated. Furthermore, wireless network virtualization depends on specific access technologies, and wireless network contains much more access technologies compared to wired network virtualization and each access technology has its particular characteristics, which makes convergence, sharing and abstraction difficult to achieve. Therefore, it may be inaccurate to consider wireless network virtualization as a subset of network virtualization.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Wireless Network Virtualization: A Survey, Some Research Issues and Challenges|first1=C.|last1=Liang|first2=F. R.|last2=Yu|journal=IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials|volume=17|issue=1|pages=358–380|doi=10.1109/COMST.2014.2352118|year=2015|s2cid=14838118 }}</ref>

== Performance ==

Until 1&nbsp;Gbit/s networks, Networknetwork virtualization was not suffering from the overhead of the software layers or hypervisor layers providing the interconnects. With the rise of high bandwidth, 10&nbsp;Gbit/s and beyond, the rates of packets exceed the capabilities of processing of the networking stacks.{{citation needed|date=June 2016}} In order to keep offering high throughput processing, some combinations of software and hardware helpers are deployed in the so-called "network in a box" associated with either a hardware -dependent [[network interface controller]] (NIC) using [[SRIOV]] extensions of the hypervisor or either using a [[fast path]] technology between the NIC and the payloads (virtual machines or containers).

For example, in case of [[Openstack]], network is provided by Neutron which leverages many features from the Linux kernel for networking: iptables, iproute2, L2 bridge, L3 routing or OVS. Since the Linux kernel cannot sustain the 10G packet rate{{cn|date=March 2020}}, then some bypass technologies for a [[fast path]] are used. The main bypass technologies are either based on a limited set of features such as [[Open vSwitch]] (OVS) with its [[DPDK]] [[user space]] implementation or based on a full feature and offload of Linux processing such as [[6WIND]] Virtualvirtual Acceleratoraccelerator.

== See also ==

{{div col|colwidth=20em}}

* [[2X Software]]

* [[Application performance engineering]]

* [[AKARI Project]]

* [[PlatformHardware virtualization]]

* [[Application performance engineering#Network Virtualization & Testing|Application performance engineering]]

* [[Avocent]]

* [[Future Internet Research and Experimentation]]

* [[Global Environment for Network Innovations]]

* [[IEEE 802.1aq]] – Shortest Path Bridging

* [[I/O virtualization]]

* [[Network functionsfunction virtualization]]

* [[Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation]]

* [[NVGRE]]

* [[Overlay network]]

* [[OVN]]

* [[Platform virtualization]]

* [[Virtual circuit]]

* [[Virtual Extensible LAN]]

* [[Virtual firewall]]

* [[Virtual private network]]

* [[Software-defined networking]]

* [[VXLAN]]

{{div col end}}

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

*{{cite book

|author=Victor Moreno and Kumar Reddy

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|year=2006

}}

{{refend}}

<references/>

== Further reading ==

* {{cite journal|last1=Esposito|first1=Flavio|last2=Matta|first2=Ibrahim|last3=Ishakian|first3=Vatche |title=Slice Embedding Solutions for Distributed Service Architectures|journal=ACM Computing Surveys|volume=46|issue=1|year=2011| url=http://www.cs.bu.edu/techreports/pdf/2011-025-slice-embedding.pdf |access-date=5 December 2017|doi=10.1145/2522968.2522974|pages=1–29|hdl=2144/11382 |citeseerx=10.1.1.300.4425|s2cid=2307120 }}

* {{cite journal|last1=Chowdhury|first1=N.M. Mosharaf Kabir|last2=Boutaba|first2=Raouf|title=A survey of network virtualization|journal=Computer Networks|volume=54|issue=5|year=2010|pages=862–876|issn=1389-1286|doi=10.1016/j.comnet.2009.10.017}}

* {{cite journal|last1=Berl|first1=Andreas|last2=Fischer|first2=Andreas|last3=de Meer|first3=Hermann|title=Using System Virtualization to Create Virtualized Networks|journal=Electronic Communications of the EASST|volume=17|year=2009|pages=1–12|issn=1863-2122}}

* {{cite journal|last1=Fischer|first1=Andreas|last2=Botero|first2=Juan Felipe|last3=Beck|first3=Michael Till|last4=de Meer|first4=Hermann|last5=Hesselbach|first5=Xavier|title=Virtual Network Embedding: A Survey|journal=IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials|year=2013|pages=1–19|issn=1553-877X|doi=10.1109/SURV.2013.013013.00155|volume=15|issue=4|s2cid=206584013 |hdl=2117/20996|hdl-access=free}}

==External links==

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* [http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/junos/junos83/swconfig83-vpns/id-10066935.html#id-10066935 Types of VPNs]

* [http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf VMware Virtual Networking Concepts] retrieved 26 October 2008

* [https://www.ibm.com/services/network/what-is-nfv Network functions Virtualization(NFV) Benefits]

[[Category:Virtualization software]]

[[Category:Internet Protocol based network software]]