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 # Silk
 
-Note: This repository should be imported as `code.cloudfoundry.org/silk`.
+> Note: This repository should be imported as `code.cloudfoundry.org/silk`.
+
+Silk is an open-source, [CNI](https://github.com/containernetworking/cni/)-compatible container networking fabric.
+It was inspired by [flannel](https://github.com/coreos/flannel) and designed to meet the strict operational
+requirements of [Cloud Foundry](https://cloudfoundry.org/platform/).
+
+To see how Silk is used inside of Cloud Foundry, look at the [CF Networking Release](https://github.com/cloudfoundry-incubator/cf-networking-release).
+
+
+## Architecture
+
+### Control plane
+
+Silk has three components:
+
+- `silk-controller` runs on at least one central node and manages IP subnet lease allocation across the cluster.
+   It is implemented as a stateless HTTP JSON API backed by a SQL database.
+
+- `silk-daemon` runs on each host in order to acquire and renew the subnet lease for that 
+
+- `silk-cni` is a short-lived program, executed by the container runner, to set up the network stack for a particular container.
+
+![](control-plane.png)
+
+
+### Data plane
+
+The Silk dataplane is a single shared [VXLAN](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7348) overlay network where each
+container host is assigned a unique IP subnet, and each container gets a unique IP from that subnet.
+
+![](data-plane.png)
+
+To provide multi-tenant network policy on top of this connectivity fabric, Cloud Foundry utilizes the
+[VXLAN GBP](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-smith-vxlan-group-policy-03#section-2.1) extension to tag
+egress packets with a policy identifier.  Other network policy enforcement schemes are also possible.
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