Having installed and configured ODL with the preceding features, let's put the setup to use by managing Open vSwitch instances using ODL. Open vSwitch or OVS as it is popularly called is a virtual switch that supports OpenFlow protocols.

To accomplish this, we will implement a topology, as shown in the following diagram:

Network topology to show ODL managing Open vSwitch

In the preceding topology, we have an ODL Controller node. This is the node where ODL is installed and configured with DLUX and L2 Switch packages. The second most important node is the Open vSwitch node. This is a simple Linux host running Open vSwitch. We will attach two interfaces on this node to the Open vSwitch instance, and two hosts will be connected to the two interfaces on the Open vSwitch node.