Windows Cilium Support for Azure CNI

[chasewilson]

Public Preview ETA : Q3 2025*

*ETAs are estimations and are subject to change

Description

Azure CNI with the ePBF dataplane (Azure CNI Powered by Cilium) currently only supports Linux. This feature adds ePBF dataplane support to Windows SKUs

Windows Version support to be announced at a later date.

[ozy]

Is ePBF typo or is it coming with a new name?

[chasewilson]

Might come with a new name but for right now, the team is working on the ePBF specific capability. We're workign on clarifying that Azure CNI Powered by Cilium isuse WITH Azure CNI Overlay and Azure CNI Pod Subnet rather than it's own CNI option.

Does that make sense?

[amitmavgupta]

@chasewilson the team is working on the ePBF-specific capability.

What is being delivered as part of this deliverable? That is causing more confusion than anything. Is this support for Cilium on Windows, are these eBPF hooks for windows or an all together different CNI offering with Windows using eBPF and not Cilium?

[chasewilson]

Good feedback here @amitmavgupta thank you. As of right now this is only Cilium support for Azure CNI Overlay. Not necessarily all ePBF on Windows. Does that make sense? I will Adjust the Title.

[amitmavgupta]

Thanks @chasewilson probably the last query :) is this coming in via native eBPF support on Windows or via some kind of a Linux-offload using DPUs?

[chasewilson]

TBH, that's a little outside my scope of control as to what the Windows team is committing to here. My commitment in this is the Cilium implementation for AKS and unfortunately, i'm not sure if Windows is bringing that natively. They could be but I can't provide commitment one way or another. I hope that helps.

[amitmavgupta]

Thanks @chasewilson no worries.