Overview
By default, a Kubernetes pod has only one network interface (eth0). Multus acts as a 'meta-plugin' that can call multiple other CNI plugins to create additional interfaces. This is essential for certain types of workloads that require separate networks for management, data, or storage traffic.
Key Features
- Multi-Homing: Allows pods to be connected to multiple networks simultaneously.
- Delegation: Delegates the actual network configuration to other CNI plugins (like Calico, Flannel, or SR-IOV).
- Custom Resources: Uses NetworkAttachmentDefinitions to describe how additional interfaces should be configured.
Use Cases
- NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) workloads.
- Applications requiring a dedicated storage network.
- High-performance computing (HPC) with dedicated data planes.