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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:

  • Primary cluster network provided by either of the following Container Network Interface (CNI) plugins:

  • Cluster Network Operator for network plugin management

OpenShift Dedicated clusters created with OpenShift 4.11 and above use OVN-Kubernetes network plugin by default. OpenShift Dedicated clusters created before OpenShift version 4.11 use the OpenShift SDN plugin after they are upgraded to OpenShift version 4.11 and above.

OpenShift Dedicated follows the life cycle of SDN according to OpenShift Core Platform:

  • SDN is deprecated for clusters as of OpenShift version 4.14.

  • Clusters that already use the OpenShift SDN plugin continue to use the plugin after they are upgraded to OpenShift versions 4.11 and above.

  • Clusters can be upgraded up to OpenShift version 4.16.

  • Clusters running on OpenShift 4.16:

    • Clusters using OpenShift version 4.16 cannot upgrade if the clusters are using the SDN plugin.

  • The SDN plugin will be discontinued in OpenShift version 4.17.

You will soon be able to migrate from OpenShift SDN to OVN for clusters running on OpenShift version 4.15 and later. This migration tool is not currently available. For more information about the OpenShift SDN deprecation and the OVN migration, see the KCS article about OpenShift SDN CNI removal in OCP 4.17.