The Modular Layer 2 (ml2) plugin is a framework allowing OpenStack
Networking to simultaneously utilize the variety of layer 2 networking
technologies found in complex real-world data centers. It currently
works with the existing openvswitch, linuxbridge, and hyperv L2
agents, and is intended to replace and deprecate the monolithic
plugins associated with those L2 agents. The ml2 framework is also
intended to greatly simplify adding support for new L2 networking
technologies, requiring much less initial and ongoing effort than
would be required to add a new monolithic core plugin.

Drivers within ml2 implement separately extensible sets of network
types and of mechanisms for accessing networks of those types. Unlike
with the metaplugin, multiple mechanisms can be used simultaneously to
access different ports of the same virtual network. Mechanisms can
utilize L2 agents via RPC and/or use mechanism drivers to interact
with external devices or controllers. Virtual networks can be composed
of multiple segments of the same or different types. Type and
mechanism drivers are loaded as python entrypoints using the stevedore
library.

Each available network type is managed by an ml2 TypeDriver.
TypeDrivers maintain any needed type-specific network state, and
perform provider network validation and tenant network allocation. The
initial ml2 version includes drivers for the local, flat, vlan, gre,
and vxlan network types.

RPC callback and notification interfaces support interaction with L2,
DHCP, and L3 agents. This version has been tested with the existing
openvswitch and linuxbridge plugins' L2 agents, and should also work
with the hyperv L2 agent. A modular agent may be developed as a
follow-on effort.

Support for mechanism drivers is currently a work-in-progress in
pre-release Havana versions, and the interface is subject to change
before the release of Havana. MechanismDrivers are currently called
both inside and following DB transactions for network and port
create/update/delete operations. In a future version, they will also
called to establish a port binding, determining the VIF type and
network segment to be used.

The database schema and driver APIs support multi-segment networks,
but the client API for multi-segment networks is not yet implemented.

ML2 supports devstack at the moment with either the Open vSwitch or
LinuxBridge L2 agents for local, flat, vlan, or gre network types.
Note that ml2 does not yet work with nova's GenericVIFDriver, so it is
necessary to configure nova to use a specific driver compatible with
the L2 agent deployed on each compute node. Additionally, support for
configuring additional ML2 items is a work in progress in devstack.
This includes configuring VXLAN support for ML2 with the OVS agent.

Note that the ml2 plugin is new and should be conidered experimental
at this point. It is undergoing rapid development, so driver APIs and
other details are likely to change during the havana development
cycle.

Follow-on tasks required for full ml2 support in havana, including
parity with the existing monolithic openvswitch, linuxbridge, and
hyperv plugins:

- Additional unit tests

- Implement MechanismDriver port binding so that a useful
  binding:vif_type value is returned for nova's GenericVIFDriver based
  on the binding:host_id value and information from the agents_db

Additional follow-on tasks expected for the havana release:

- Extend providernet extension API to support multi-segment networks

The following MechanismDrivers are actively under development for the
Havana release:

- Arista Driver:
  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/quantum/+spec/sukhdev-8

- Cisco Nexus Driver:
  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/quantum/+spec/ml2-md-cisco-nexus

- OpenDaylight Driver:
  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/quantum/+spec/ml2-opendaylight-mechanism-driver

- Tail-f NCS Driver:
  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/quantum/+spec/tailf-ncs