The basics of switching in OpenStack

In the context of computer networking, a switch is defined as a device that connects multiple devices together and uses packet switching techniques to receive, process, and forward data from one device to another. Traditionally, switches have been physical in nature and range in size from that of a physical network rack or larger to the switch built into our home routers, or even smaller. In a reference implementation, Neutron relies on the use of virtual switches to forward packets to virtual machine instances and other virtualized devices hosted on infrastructure nodes. Those nodes, in turn, are connected to physical switches that forward traffic between nodes and other physical devices such as routers and firewalls. How Neutron configures these virtual switches depends on the virtual switching platform in use within the environment and the type of network requested by the user. In the following sections, we'll take a look at the two most popular virtual...