At IIJ, we are developing a Kubernetes platform that uses OVN-Kubernetes as a destination for migrating VM workloads. We currently use the platform in development and SRE environments, and we plan to build a production environment during fiscal year 2026. This article explains why IIJ adopted OVN-Kubernetes and how we use it today.
Observability is a key part of any system, and Kubernetes networking is no exception. But even if you see WHAT happens in your network, you still don’t know WHY it happens. Especially if you have a number of network policies in the cluster, it is always difficult to tell why exactly a given connection is allowed or denied.
To solve this problem, OVN-Kubernetes has introduced a new observability feature together with the NetObserv project that adds explicit communication between observability and networking.
This blog post provides a comprehensive guide on deploying OVN-Kubernetes in an environment leveraging Data Processing Units (DPUs). This setup is crucial for high-performance networking in cloud-native applications, offloading network processing from the host CPU to the DPU, and providing better security for the networking control-plane. Additionally, OVN-Kubernetes brings in robust features like User Defined Networks (UDNs) that enable per tenant network isolation into the Kubernetes environment and integrates with the DPU solution.