Kubernetes Network Emulation, a standard interface to design and validate networks#

Manodipto Ghose & Ryan Elliott (no affiliation given in program)

• Why: Sits exactly at the intersection of the PM's cloud-native and physical-network interests: it uses Kubernetes as the substrate for emulating real multi-vendor network OSes, enabling shift-left validation without lab hardware.
• What: KNE (openconfig/KNE) is a vendor-neutral network device emulation framework: containerized vendor NOS images wired into arbitrary topologies on Kubernetes, with lifecycle management provided by k8s. Paired with the OpenConfig Feature Profiles repo and the ONDATRA test framework, it enables "write test once, run anywhere" — the same tests against a virtual KNE testbed and a physical one. Claimed outcomes: weeks/months saved over waiting for testbed procurement, and at least 50% savings in testbed build costs.
• How: Topology defined as nodes (vendor NOS containers, e.g. Arista cEOS, with bootstrap config and certs) plus A-to-Z links; Ixia-c (containerized Open Traffic Generator, OTG model-based API with Snappir/GoSnappi SDKs) injects traffic and emulates control planes (e.g. BGP peers) at points in the topology. OTG scales from containers to hardware generators via the same API.
• Where applicable: Open-source and broadly applicable, with one hard dependency: your NOS must have a container image (major vendors do). Best fit for feature/compliance testing and CI; not a performance- or optics-fidelity tool — control-plane and functional behavior only. The "compliance as code" angle (shared test suites in featureprofiles) is a genuine standardization play worth watching.