Contrail Networking is an industry-leading SDN platform providing advanced virtualized networking services. Contrail runs in a logically centralized, physically distributed model which supports highly scalable architectures while delivering high networking performance. Contrail provides the neutron plugin for OpenStack in addition to advanced networking features.
- Routing and Bridging
- The forwarding plane provides line-rate L3 routing and L2 bridging in multitenant and virtualized or containerized environments. It is based in the software vRouter and hence completely agnostic to the underlay network.
- Load Balancing
- Equal-cost multipath (ECMP) load balancing with session affinity is built right into the vRouter’s forwarding plane. It distributes traffic across endpoints like VNF network services, such as virtualized firewalls for example. There is also an application-layer load balancing function built-in.
- Security and Multitenancy
- The use of tenant domains and L3 VPNs to create virtual networks inherently provides a secure segregated environment, where virtual networks cannot talk to each other without policies. The vRouter has built-in distributed L3 and L4 firewall capabilities that allow users to define simple and abstract security policies between virtual networks. The policies can specify additional VNF services in the path to create what are commonly called service chains; for example, the Juniper Networks vSRX virtual firewall can sit between a public network and a private network or between two networks that need tight security supervision. Networking can also scale out instances of such VNFs with load balancing as the service chain traffic load requires it. Contrail also allows for security intent to be specified in plain English via tag expressions without needing to specify networking constructs. The Contrail Security Controller translates this high-level intent into specific security ACLs.
- Gateway Services
- Contrail interoperates with most physical or VM-based routing and switching equipment that supports L3VPN or EVPN with the appropriate overlay network encapsulation standards (VXLAN, MPLSoGRE, MPLSoUDP). This includes interoperability with Juniper Networks MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers and QFX Series switches, as well as other vendors’ devices to seamlessly connect to the WAN or legacy networks and workloads.
- Dynamic Service Chaining
- Contrail Networking provides dynamic service chaining of virtualized or physical network functions that simplifies the creation, deployment, and management of differentiated network services. Connecting these network functions through proven open networking standards, Contrail Networking simplifies integration with Juniper and third-party service software and has nurtured a rich technology ecosystem of partners who offer services on top of the platform. It is a key ingredient that enables service personalization and deployment of massively scalable and highly available CNFs, VNFs for NFV.
