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Module 13: Network Virtualization - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Flow table - This table maps incoming packets to a particular flow and specifies the functions to be performed on the packets. There may be multiple flow tables that function in a pipeline fashion.
        
        Group table - A flow table can direct a flow to a group table, which can feed a variety of actions that affect one or more flows.
        
        Meter table - This table triggers a variety of performance-related actions on a flow.
- - - - Less equipment is required - Virtualization enables server consolidation, which requires fewer physical servers, fewer networking devices, and less supporting infrastructure. It also means lower maintenance costs.
      - Less energy is consumed - Consolidating servers lowers the monthly power and cooling costs. Reduced consumption helps enterprises to achieve a smaller carbon footprint.
      - Less space is required - Server consolidation with virtualization reduces the overall footprint of the data center. Fewer servers, network devices, and racks reduce the amount of required floor space.
- - - - Another problem is that traffic flows differ substantially from the traditional client-server model. Typically, a data center has a considerable amount of traffic being exchanged between virtual servers, such as the UCS servers shown in the figure. These flows are called East-West traffic and can change in location and intensity over time. North-South traffic occurs between the distribution and core layers and is typically traffic destined for offsite locations such as another data center, other cloud providers, or the internet.
- - - - A network device contains the following planes:
      - Control plane - This is typically regarded as the brains of a device. It is used to make forwarding decisions. The control plane contains Layer 2 and Layer 3 route forwarding mechanisms, such as routing protocol neighbor tables and topology tables, IPv4 and IPv6 routing tables, STP, and the ARP table. Information sent to the control plane is processed by the CPU.
      - Data plane - Also called the forwarding plane, this plane is typically the switch fabric connecting the various network ports on a device. The data plane of each device is used to forward traffic flows. Routers and switches use information from the control plane to forward incoming traffic out the appropriate egress interface. Information in the data plane is typically processed by a special data plane processor without the CPU getting involved.