Oracle Solaris 11 supports several network virtualization and advanced networking features. For a detailed description of these features, see Key Oracle Solaris Network Administration Features in Strategies for Network Administration in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
The following features are new in Oracle Solaris. Several enhancements are for features that were introduced in Oracle Solaris 11 11/11:
Communication between VNICs through an external switch – By using the Oracle Solaris reflective relay feature, you can force traffic between local Oracle Solaris zones or Oracle VMs that share the same underlying physical NIC to always be sent to the physical network instead of the host virtual switch. See Controlling Switching Between VMs Over the Same Physical Port in Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Displaying multiple MAC addresses that are associated with VNICs – Multiple MAC addresses are associated with system-created VNICs in Oracle VM Server for SPARC and anet resources in Oracle Solaris Kernel Zones. Starting with Oracle Solaris 11.2, you can use the dladm show-vnic command to display multiple MAC addresses that are associated with VNICs. See Displaying VNICs With Multiple MAC Addresses in Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3 and Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.3 Administration Guide.
Dropped packet accounting and reporting for datalinks – The dlstat command is enhanced to support the reporting of input and output packet drops for datalinks. The dlstat show-phys –o command output includes four additiona fields that display the following information: number of input packet drops, number of bytes per input drops, number of output packet drops, and the number of bytes per output drops. For specific examples, see the dlstat(1M) man page.
Elastic Virtual Switch (EVS) feature – EVS is an L2 technology that expands network virtualization capabilities by enabling you to manage virtual switches across multiple hosts. With the Oracle Solaris EVS feature, you can deploy virtual networks that span multiple hosts within either a multi-tenant cloud environment or datacenter. See Chapter 6, Administering Elastic Virtual Switches in Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Displaying PV IPoIB datalinks for physical IB HCA in kernel zones – You can display these types of datalinks by using the dladm command. See Creating and Viewing Paravirtualized IPoIB Datalinks in Kernel Zones in Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Oracle Solaris CEE DCBX support – In addition to IEEE, Oracle Solaris supports the Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) data center bridging exchange (DCBX) feature This enhancement enables you to deploy Oracle Solaris Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FcoE) in those environments that have a diverse set of switches when using data center bridging (DCB). Oracle Solaris CEE DCBX supports priority-based flow control (PFC) and Application type-length-value (TLV). For more information, see Setting the Mode of Operation for DCB in Managing Network Datalinks in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Private virtual local area networks – Oracle Solaris includes support for private virtual local area networks (PVLANs), as defined in the RFC 5517 standard. You can use a PVLAN to divide a regular VLAN (primary) into sub-VLANs (secondary). For more information, see Chapter 4, Configuring Private Virtual Local Area Networks in Managing Network Datalinks in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Probe-based datalink multipathing (DLMP) – This feature enhancement for DLMP detects the loss of connectivity between DLMP aggregated links and configured targets. This type of failure detection addresses the limitations of the link-based failure detection mechanism, which can only detect failures caused by the loss of direct connection between the datalink and the first-hop switch. See Configuring Probe-Based Failure Detection for DLMP Aggregation in Managing Network Datalinks in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) – Oracle Solaris includes the capability for managing network devices that support SR-IOV. See Using Single Root I/O Virtualization With VNICs in Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Virtual eXtensible area networks (VXLANs) – In addition to the VLAN support that was introduced in Oracle Solaris 11 11/11, VXLANs are now also supported. A VXLAN is an L2 and L3 technology that works by overlaying a datalink (L2) network on top of an IP (L3) network. VXLANs address the 4K limitation that is imposed when using VLANs. Typically, VXLANs are used in a cloud infrastructure to isolate multiple virtual networks. You can manage VXLANs by using the EVS feature. See Chapter 3, Configuring Virtual Networks by Using Virtual Extensible Local Area Networks in Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3.
Layer 3 Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) – Oracle Solaris 11 supports both L2 and L3 VRRP. The proprietary L3 VRRP feature provides high availability of IP addresses, such as those that are used for routers and load balancers. L3 VRRP removes the need to configure unique VRRP virtual MAC addresses for VRRP routers, thereby providing better support for VRRP over IPMP, InfiniBand interfaces, and zones. See Chapter 3, Using Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol in Configuring an Oracle Solaris 11.3 System as a Router or a Load Balancer.
For information about Oracle VM, including Oracle VM Server for x86, Oracle VM Server for SPARC (previously called Sun Logical Domains, or LDoms), and Oracle VM Manager, see the documentation at https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/documentation/vm-sparc-194287.html.
Oracle also provides the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center for managing some aspects of network virtualization, for example, the ability to create virtual private networks inside a virtual datacenter. For more information about Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center, go to https://docs.oracle.com/cd/cloud-control-13.3/index.htm.