Chapter 1. About networking
Red Hat OpenShift Networking is an ecosystem of features, plugins, and advanced networking capabilities that enhance Kubernetes networking with advanced networking-related features that your cluster needs to manage network traffic for one or multiple hybrid clusters. This ecosystem of networking capabilities integrates ingress, egress, load balancing, high-performance throughput, security, and inter- and intra-cluster traffic management. The Red Hat OpenShift Networking ecosystem also provides role-based observability tooling to reduce its natural complexities.
The following are some of the most commonly used Red Hat OpenShift Networking features available on your cluster:
- Cluster Network Operator for network plugin management
Primary cluster network provided by either of the following Container Network Interface (CNI) plugins:
- OVN-Kubernetes network plugin, which is the default CNI plugin.
OpenShift SDN network plugin, which was deprecated in OpenShift 4.16 and removed in OpenShift 4.17.
ImportantYou cannot migrate an OpenShift 4.16 cluster that uses the SDN network plugin to OpenShift 4.17 because no migration path currently exists.
