LinuxCon + CloudOpen + ContainerCon NA 2015

Docker is widely used to isolate tenants in DCs, and VxLAN enables large scale docker deployment. However, VxLAN suffers from BUM packets resulting in heavy CPU load for packet replication and NW congestion. Replication is avoidable by IP multicasting or Nicira service node, but the former has no help on network congestion and the latter broadcasts ARP packets. Cisco's floodless mode suppresses ARP broadcasting, but it relies on a vendor-specific ToR. We propose our OSS, Goplane (osrg/goplane in Github), that uses software BGP (GoBGP) and OVS. Containers' IP, Mac, and VNI are exchanged by BGP when they boot, and the OVS in each host is configured to send packets to the best VxLAN tunnel chosen by BGP path selection. ARPs are never sent out because the OVSes know all IP/Mac mappings. Complex overlay topologies can be built on any IP network as the only thing we require is IP reachability.