Megalos: A scalable architecture for the virtualization of large network scenarios

Abstract

We introduce an open-source, scalable, and distributed architecture, called Megalos, that supports the implementation of virtual network scenarios consisting of virtual devices (VDs) where each VD may have several Layer 2 interfaces assigned to virtual LANs. We rely on Docker containers to realize vendor-independent VDs and we leverage Kubernetes for the management of the nodes of a distributed cluster. Our architecture does not require platform-specific configurations and supports a seamless interconnection between the virtual environment and the physical one. Also, it guarantees the segregation of each virtual LAN traffic from the traffic of other LANs, from the cluster traffic, and from Internet traffic. Further, a packet is only sent to the cluster node containing the recipient VD. We produce several example applications where we emulate large network scenarios, with thousands of VDs and LANs. Finally, we experimentally show the scalability potential of Megalos by measuring the overhead of the distributed environment and of its signaling protocols.