DANM vs Network Service Mesh

DANM is a free network management suite for Kubernetes, originally developed as Nokia’s TelCo-grade solution. Its CNI metaplugin can give a Pod multiple network interfaces and delegate their setup to other CNI plugins. Built-in IP address management supports dynamic, static, or no IPv4 and IPv6 allocation, with up to 8 million allocations per network object. The IPVLAN CNI provides L2 interfaces and supports routes and policy-based routes in Pod network namespaces. Documented integrations include Intel SR-IOV and MACVLAN, with delegation to Calico and Flannel. Production-grade mode provides TenantNetwork and ClusterNetwork APIs for administrators managing shared resources and tenants using assigned resources. An optional Svcwatcher extends Kubernetes Service discovery across a Pod’s interfaces. A webhook validates DANM API objects and connects tenant networks to administrator-configured physical interface profiles. Users must create a Kubernetes cluster and install DANM manually; its deployment guide says there is no Docker container release. That guide identifies Kubernetes 1.17.x as tested and says versions earlier than 1.9.x are not officially supported. DANM is licensed under the 3-Clause BSD License.

Network Service Mesh connects workloads across clusters and clouds through a hybrid, multi-cloud IP service mesh. Each workload can connect independently to zero or more Network Services, regardless of where it runs. The project says it works with an existing CNI without requiring changes to Kubernetes or workloads. Services can provide connectivity, security, and observability at Layer 3 and above, carrying IP or Ethernet payloads.

Clients may be Kubernetes pods, virtual machines, or physical servers. They authenticate independently, currently using SPIFFE IDs, and need authorization to attach. Clients request and close virtual wires over gRPC and can monitor connection status through a streaming call. Endpoint selection offers composition, selective composition, topology awareness, and scale from zero. A service may also provide domain-scoped DNS for connected pods. The architecture describes integration with Istio, Linkerd, Consul, and Kuma. Network Service Mesh is a CNCF sandbox project and is free and open source. Its run guide lists Docker, Go, a Kubernetes cluster, and kubectl as prerequisites; most examples require at least two worker nodes.