Virtual switching will be a key function for many NFV deployments, and Open vSwitch is open source software capable of delivering this capability.  One of the limitations of the software today is it addresses endpoint application use where large packet sizes are typical and is unable to switch large number of small packets.   

Our team accepted the challenge of quickly putting together an alternate implementation that would achieve 10x throughput (small packets) of current virtual switches.  

The Intel® DPDK Accelerated Open vSwitch takes full advantage of the Intel DPDK high-throughput packet switching, the Intel DPDK virtualization functionality, and zero copy packet switching between switch and guest application. The Intel DPDK vSwitch also moves the software switch from Kernel to Linux user space process facilitating industry and proprietary enhancements.

We are pleased to make this initial implementation (focused on fast L2 switching) available to the community as a great starting point for developers assigned to create virtual switching functionality within NFV/SDN product offerings.

Additional development areas that we are considering include dynamic flows, statistics and functional utilities, tunnel support, and multiple table support.  

Please provide us feedback as you build on top of this project, as well as input on development areas to consider.