virtual Ethernet port aggregator (VEPA)
Virtualization solutions are increasingly being installedindata centers. Each individual server has its own hypervisor with a virtual switch that manages the data flow to the virtual machines. In addition, the functionality of switches has changed considerably in recent years, as they take on protective functions such as protection against intruders, load balancing between Ethernet ports or deep packet inspection( DPI), among others. Therefore, the performance and management of virtual switches are of particular interest.
For these applications, Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA) has been standardized by the IEEE802.1Q (bg) working group on Edge Virtual Bridging( EVB). Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA) is a trunking technique used to support communication among virtual machines( VM) and with a host. With VEPA, each individual hypervisor has an Ethernet switch. This is beneficial for virtual machine (VM) connectivity, especially since switch functionality has increased significantly.
The advantages of VEPA technology are the management of virtual machine (VM) traffic, the partitioning of tasks between network cards and bridges to better exploit their specific functionalities, and efficient solutions of unicast, multicast and broadcast between virtual machines and hosts, as well as adaptation to existing Ethernet structures.