X-ClusterLink: An Efficient Cross-Cluster Communication Framework in Multi-Kubernetes Clusters
Pengbo Wang, Gongming Zhao, Yuantao Wu, Hongli Xu, Haibo Wang · 2025
Kubernetes is widely adopted by enterprises to enhance service availability for applications such as web services and large-scale model training, due to its advantages in managing containerized applications. As service demands increase, a single Kubernetes cluster often becomes insufficient, leading to the trend of using multiple clusters to improve service scalability. However, achieving efficient cross-cluster communication poses significant challenges due to the need for low latency, high throughput, and strong robustness. Existing methods for cross-cluster communication either employ a centralized control plane, which becomes a communication bottleneck, or use numerous service-bound proxies, leading to increased management complexity and possibly compromised robustness in cross-cluster communication.