Similar to container-native storage, the container-native network abstracts the physical network infrastructure to expose a flat network to containers. It is tightly integrated with Kubernetes to tackle the challenges involved in pod-to-pod, node-to-node, pod-to-service and external communication.

Kubernetes can support a host of plugins based on the Container Network Interface (CNI) specification, which defines the network connectivity of containers and deals with the network resources when the container is deleted. The CNI project is one of the incubating projects of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

Container-native networks go beyond basic connectivity. They provide dynamic enforcement of network security rules. Through a predefined policy, it is possible to configure fine-grained control over communications between containers, pods and nodes.

Read the entire article at The New Stack

Janakiram MSV is an analyst, advisor, and architect. Follow him on Twitter,  Facebook and LinkedIn.