It looks a lot as VDE (virtual distributed ethernet) [0] (quickly referenced in the paper). Qemu used to support VDE natively for a while, then the development

It looks a lot as VDE (virtual distributed ethernet) [0] (quickly referenced in the paper). Qemu used to support VDE natively for a while, then the development stopped and its support has been removed from mainline. It was cool while it lasted. The main differences with VDE seem to be that VALE uses a kernel backend instead of being 100% in user space and that VALE is limited to local ethernet while VDE provided also remote "plugs" and "cables". [0] http://vde.sourceforge.net/ http://vde.sourceforge.net/