@Scale
Deploying Segment Routing over IPv6 micro-segments eliminates legacy protocol translation bottlenecks and enables seamless end-to-end traffic engineering across data center and WAN domains.
AI-assisted summary of Live from SCCC: Building scalable AI cloud interconnects with SRv6 | Alexey Gorovoy, Nebius — original source. Check the original for full context.
Source published:
Detailed notes
## Background Published by @Scale on YouTube on August 31, 2026, this presentation features Alexey Gorovoy from Nebius speaking live from the Santa Clara Convention Center. According to the page description, the session explores Nebius' evolving architecture for customer cloud interconnects, using SRv6 to bridge virtual cloud environments with the physical network edge while providing end-to-end VPN and Traffic Engineering services without protocol translation.
## TL;DR Alexey Gorovoy outlines Nebius' transition to an SRv6-based network architecture designed to meet massive multi-terabit customer demands for AI workloads. By replacing legacy protocol translation boundaries (such as VXLAN EVPN in the data center and SR-MPLS in the WAN) with SRv6 uSID, Nebius achieves unified end-to-end L3VPN and Traffic Engineering capabilities. The presentation details their implementation using software Cloud Gateways powered by FD.io VPP, dynamic service-unaware firewall steering, and plans for native SRv6-aware firewalls and automated TE controllers.
## Atmosphere & style The presentation carries a professional, highly technical, and engineering-focused tone suitable for an architecture conference. Gorovoy delivers a clear, pragmatic breakdown of real-world networking challenges, balancing deep architectural analysis with lessons learned from production implementation. The delivery feels structured, authoritative, and forward-looking as it bridges current deployment experiences with future standards contributions.
## Key takeaways - [00:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=3s) Traditional customer cloud interconnects suffer from protocol boundaries and translation points between distinct edge, WAN backbone, and data center domains. - [01:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=114s) Nebius operates an IPv6-first infrastructure and initially handled customer dataset ingress locally over the public internet before multi-terabit connectivity demands emerged. - [03:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=195s) Using separate protocol stacks—VXLAN EVPN inside the data center and SR-MPLS across the WAN—created major performance bottlenecks at the Cloud Gateway translation layer. - [05:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=317s) Nebius selected SRv6 over VXLAN and MPLS to unify the network because it combines native overlay routing with sophisticated Traffic Engineering capabilities. - [08:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=480s) By adopting SRv6 uSID (Micro-Segment), instructions are encoded directly into the IPv6 destination address, eliminating extra headers like SRH, MPLS, or VXLAN to boost software router performance. - [10:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=632s) SRv6 Service-Unaware mode allows dynamic firewall steering via proxy nodes on Service Leaves without requiring legacy security appliances to parse SRv6 headers. - [11:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=717s) Nebius built its Cloud Gateway using the open-source FD.io Vector Packet Processing (VPP) framework due to its performant native SRv6 node support. - [11:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=717s) SRv6 uSID proved production-ready and fully interoperable across multiple hardware and software vendors, enabling incremental deployment alongside existing MPLS infrastructure. - [13:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=824s) Future network developments include bringing native SRv6 awareness directly to internal software firewalls and building an in-house dynamic Traffic Engineering Controller. - [13:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=824s) Nebius co-authored an IETF draft with Cisco detailing the architecture and uSID allocation schemes for cloud-to-edge SRv6 interconnects.
## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=3s) Introduction and Setting the Industry Context for Cloud Interconnects
Alexey Gorovoy, a network engineer at Nebius, introduces his presentation on how Nebius is evolving its customer cloud interconnect architecture using Segment Routing over IPv6 (SRv6) as a fundamental building block. Before diving into Nebius's specific implementation, he sets the broader industry context surrounding cloud connectivity. Most modern cloud providers offer interconnect solutions—private connections linking customer premises directly to the cloud provider's network. The core requirements for these connections include strict tenant isolation, predictable bandwidth, and integrated security capabilities.
To transport customer traffic from remote interconnect points across the backbone and data center into virtual cloud environments, the traffic must traverse multiple distinct network domains: the edge, the WAN backbone, and the data center fabric. Traditionally, each domain has been constructed using its own dedicated technology stack optimized for that specific environment. While there is nothing inherently wrong with these technologies individually, Gorovoy emphasizes that "they are not cleanly integrating end-to-end," which introduces protocol translation points, artificial service boundaries, and performance bottlenecks across domain edges.
- **Speaker:** Alexey Gorovoy, Network Engineer at Nebius - **Core Interconnect Requirements:** Tenant isolation, predictable bandwidth, integrated network security - **Network Domains Traversed:** Edge, WAN Backbone, Data Center - **Core Architectural Challenge:** Incompatibility between isolated per-domain technology stacks creating translation points and operational bottlenecks
[01:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=114s) Overview of Nebius Architecture and Initial Customer Demand
Nebius is an AI-native cloud provider building large-scale GPU clusters and developing an end-to-end AI cloud computing platform. The company builds the full technology stack to allow customers to build, train, and deploy models and applications in a single environment. Operating globally with data centers across Europe and the United States, Nebius interconnects its regions via a private backbone, while each individual site connects to the internet locally or via the nearest telecommunications Point of Presence (PoP).
In the early stages of Nebius's growth, customer interconnect demand primarily revolved around transferring massive datasets from customer premises into Nebius cloud storage for AI model training. This initial workflow relied heavily on the public internet, meaning traffic remained local to the specific region and did not traverse the inter-regional backbone. This setup functioned effectively because heavy data ingress occurred predominantly as a one-off event during initial customer onboarding.
- **Company Focus:** AI-native cloud platform and large-scale GPU infrastructure - **Footprint:** Global presence with data center regions across Europe and the US, linked by a private backbone and local telecommunications PoPs - **Initial Ingress Model:** High-volume dataset transfers over the internet, remaining local to specific regional data centers during onboarding
[03:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=195s) Legacy Data Center Protocol Stack and Emerging Interconnect Demands
Nebius operates as a strong advocate and practitioner of an IPv6-only foundation across its entire infrastructure, including data center fabrics, compute clusters, storage systems, and supporting services. The core network architecture relies on two in-house virtual software routers built on open-source components: the Cloud Gateway and the Firewall. The Cloud Gateway bridges virtual customer workloads to external networks using a VXLAN EVPN protocol stack within the data center, transitioning to Option A Segment Routing (SR-MPLS / MPLS) over the WAN to provide Layer 3 VPN (L3VPN) services to virtual machines.
As customer workloads matured, connectivity requirements shifted dramatically: 1. Customers demanded **predictable, dedicated bandwidth** over best-effort internet links. 2. Capacity demands escalated from gigabits into **hundreds of gigabits and multi-terabytes per second**. 3. Built-in security services, such as **end-to-end encryption and inline firewall inspection**, became mandatory.
Carrying this massive traffic across backbone and data center domains to the Cloud Gateway required seamless end-to-end VPN and Traffic Engineering (TE) capabilities. Maintaining two separate protocol stacks (VXLAN EVPN in the data center and MPLS in the WAN) meant the translation/stitching point between them became a major functional and operational bottleneck.
- **Infrastructure Foundation:** IPv6-first architecture across compute, fabric, and storage - **Proprietary Virtual Routers:** In-house Cloud Gateway and Firewall virtual routers built on open-source data planes - **Initial Data Center Stack:** VXLAN EVPN inside the data center; Option A SR-MPLS in the WAN - **Scaling Drivers:** Multi-terabit capacity requirements, guaranteed SLA bandwidth, and dynamic security service chaining
[05:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=317s) Evaluating Protocol Options: Why SRv6 Fits the Architecture
To eliminate the protocol translation boundary, Nebius evaluated existing overlay technologies. While VXLAN EVPN features widespread hardware vendor support and open-source adoption, it lacks native Traffic Engineering (TE) capabilities, making it rigid and inefficient for dynamic service insertion (such as steering traffic through firewalls). MPLS offers robust TE capabilities, but is poorly suited for scale within pure data center networks and software virtual routers. Bridging the two via dedicated stitching gateways introduces hardware performance hits, feature gaps between implementations, and significant operational complexity.
Nebius selected **SRv6 (Segment Routing over IPv6)** to unify the network. SRv6 combines the best of both paradigms: it operates as a standard IP-in-IP encapsulated overlay while natively embedding sophisticated Traffic Engineering capabilities directly into the packet header.
| Technology Stack | Data Center Suitability | Native Traffic Engineering | Multi-Vendor Adoption | Key Constraint | |:--- |:--- |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **VXLAN EVPN** | High | Poor / Rigid | Very High | Requires complex, rigid routing designs for service steering | | **MPLS / SR-MPLS** | Low | High | High | Unsuitable for data center fabric & software router overlays | | **SRv6** | High | High | Maturing / High | Requires IPv6 underlay support across all domains |
[08:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=480s) SRv6 uSID Implementation and Packet Overhead Reduction
Nebius deployed an overlay architecture using **SRv6 Micro-Segment (uSID)**. Leveraging their existing IPv6 routed underlay, SRv6 functionality was enabled strictly at the edge nodes of the network: the software Cloud Gateway on the cloud side, and physical Peering Border Routers on the physical edge. These endpoints act as traditional L3VPN Provider Edge (PE) nodes, while intermediate routers perform plain IPv6 forwarding (using BGP in the data center fabric and IS-IS across the WAN backbone).
By using SRv6, the L3VPN service remains transparent and un-stitched end-to-end, completely eliminating translation points at the Data Center Interconnect (DCI) boundary. Furthermore, by utilizing the **SRv6 uSID (Micro-Segment)** compression scheme, segment IDs are encoded directly within the standard destination IPv6 address fields. This eliminates the need for a separate Segment Routing Extension Header (SRH), MPLS label stacks, or VXLAN metadata headers. This reduction in packet encapsulation overhead drastically improves forwarding performance, particularly within software virtual routers.
- **Edge Endpoints:** Software Cloud Gateways (virtual) and Physical Peering Border Routers - **Underlay Protocols:** BGP in the data center fabric; IS-IS in the WAN domain - **Encapsulated Efficiency:** SRv6 uSID encodes segment instructions directly inside the 128-bit IPv6 destination address - **Performance Gain:** Complete elimination of extra protocol headers (SRH, VXLAN, MPLS) reduces byte overhead and speeds up software lookup pathways
[10:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=632s) Dynamic Service Chaining: SRv6 Service-Unaware Firewall Steering
To support inline security functions, Nebius implemented SRv6-based dynamic firewall service chaining. They initially adopted the **SRv6 Service-Unaware mode**, allowing existing firewall appliances to perform packet inspection without requiring them to support SRv6 parsing natively.
This service injection model relies on SRv6 proxy nodes located on dedicated Service Leaves within the data center fabric. These proxy nodes support Node SIDs and Adjacency SIDs that map directly to physical interfaces connected to the firewall cluster. By embedding these Adjacency SIDs into SRv6 Traffic Engineering (TE) policies programmatically instantiated at the Cloud Gateway or Border Router edges, traffic can be dynamically steered through the firewall cluster when inspection is required, or routed straight past it when unneeded.
- **Firewall Integration Mode:** SRv6 Service-Unaware mode (firewalls perform standard IP inspection without parsing SRv6 headers) - **Service Leaves & Proxy Nodes:** SRv6-enabled fabric leaves translate SRv6 paths into physical interfaces connected to firewalls - **Traffic Control:** Adjacency SIDs enable granular, policy-driven traffic steering through firewall clusters on demand
[11:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=717s) Implementation Lessons, Software Routers, and Interoperability
Reflecting on their technical evaluation over the past year, Nebius conducted extensive Proof-of-Concept (PoC) testing across multiple hardware vendors and open-source networking stacks. They successfully validated the multi-vendor interoperability of the SRv6 Micro-Segment (uSID) specification, giving them confidence to build out their custom Cloud Gateway software router.
For the Cloud Gateway implementation, Nebius selected the **Vector Packet Processing (VPP)** data plane framework due to its rich, performant support for native SRv6 graph nodes and control plane integration. Gorovoy notes that MPLS and SRv6 can seamlessly coexist during migration periods. Because the underlying network only requires standard IPv6 reachability, SRv6 PE capabilities can be enabled incrementally at network edges without disrupting existing infrastructure. The overall takeaway is that SRv6 uSID is production-mature, fully interoperable, and provides a clear migration path.
- **Data Plane Framework:** FD.io VPP (Vector Packet Processing) chosen for custom Cloud Gateway implementation - **Coexistence:** Seamless side-by-side operation with existing MPLS underlays/overlays - **Key Takeaways:** Mature protocol ecosystem, proven multi-vendor uSID interoperability, and low-risk edge-only deployment model
[13:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=824s) Architecture Summary, Future Roadmap, and IETF Standardization
Gorovoy summarizes SRv6 as bringing "simplicity and unification" to Nebius's network. By extending L3VPN and Traffic Engineering services cleanly from remote customer interconnect PoPs to virtual cloud workloads, Nebius eliminates protocol translation points, minimizes operational complexity, and scales out its border routers and Cloud Gateways independently.
Looking forward, Nebius is expanding its SRv6 footprint across additional network domains, including its Internet Edge and internal Data Center Interconnects (DCI). Furthermore, because Nebius develops its own firewall software, they plan to add **native SRv6 awareness directly to the firewall application**. This will remove the dependency on dedicated proxy service leaves, enabling granular, scale-out firewall insertion per application, domain, customer, or tenant segment anywhere in the IPv6 fabric. Nebius is also building an in-house dynamic Traffic Engineering Controller to automate real-time policy provisioning.
Finally, Gorovoy invites the networking community to review their co-authored **IETF draft** published alongside Cisco and industry peers. The draft details the architectural framework, uSID allocation schemes, and deployment nuances for interconnecting virtual cloud environments with physical network edges using SRv6.
- **Operational Impact:** Unified protocol stack reduces operational overhead and simplifies multi-tenant VPN scaling - **Future Roadmap Capabilities:** - Expansion of SRv6 to Internet Edge and internal DCI domains - Native SRv6-aware firewalls to eliminate dedicated proxy service leaves - Development of an in-house dynamic SRv6 Traffic Engineering (TE) Controller - **Standards Contribution:** Co-authored IETF draft with Cisco detailing cloud-to-edge SRv6 interconnect design architectures
<FollowUp label="Would you like a detailed breakdown of how SRv6 uSID (Micro-Segment) address encoding works?" query="Explain how SRv6 uSID (Micro-Segment) address encoding works and how it eliminates the Segment Routing Extension Header (SRH)."/>
## Notable quotes > [00:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=3s) they are not cleanly integrating end-to-end — Alexey Gorovoy
> [03:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=195s) predictable, dedicated bandwidth — Alexey Gorovoy
> [03:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=195s) hundreds of gigabits and multi-terabytes per second — Alexey Gorovoy
> [03:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=195s) end-to-end encryption and inline firewall inspection — Alexey Gorovoy
> [05:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=317s) SRv6 (Segment Routing over IPv6) — Alexey Gorovoy
> [08:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=480s) SRv6 Micro-Segment (uSID) — Alexey Gorovoy
> [10:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=632s) SRv6 Service-Unaware mode — Alexey Gorovoy
> [11:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=717s) Vector Packet Processing (VPP) — Alexey Gorovoy
> [13:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=824s) simplicity and unification — Alexey Gorovoy
> [13:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU&t=824s) native SRv6 awareness directly to the firewall application — Alexey Gorovoy
## Mentioned Alexey Gorovoy, Nebius, SRv6, uSID, VXLAN EVPN, SR-MPLS, MPLS, IPv6, BGP, IS-IS, Vector Packet Processing (VPP), FD.io, Cisco, IETF, Cloud Gateway, Firewall, Santa Clara Convention Center, @Scale
[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqO2CA9-GU)