Networking in K8s: CNI plugins, Multus for multi-NIC, SR-IOV

Why Telecom Needs Multiple Network Interfaces

Standard Kubernetes networking assigns a single network interface to each pod through the CNI plugin. This works well for web applications but falls short for telecom workloads that require traffic separation across multiple network planes. A typical 5G network function needs separate interfaces for signaling traffic on the SBI plane, user data on the data plane, OAM management traffic, and inter-site synchronization. Multus CNI is a meta-plugin that enables attaching multiple network interfaces to a single pod, each connected to a different network with distinct performance characteristics…