What's the difference between OTV and VXLAN?

[Steve Zhou]

Hi all,

As I know, both VXLAN and OTV are technologies designed to extend Layer2 network (encapsulate MAC in IP). May I knwo the difference between them? Especially from the design purpose perspective. When would we choose OTV and vice versa.

thanks a lot!

[Collin Clark]

FYI, I'm not a VMWare expert! Either technology will work just fine. When would you choose vxlan? When you only have to extend layer 2 for the VMWare infrastructure. That kind of spells out when to use OTV; when other (non-vmware) services need to extended as well as VMWare. None of my customers use vxlan simply because of the cost.

[Steve Zhou]

Hi Collin,

You mentioned that "None of my customers use vxlan simply because of the cost", may I know why the cost of vxlan is more expensive than OTV?

thank you!