How Meituan Cloud Scaled Its Network Architecture from Private to Public Cloud

Why Meituan Built Its Own Cloud

Although many assume Meituan is merely a consumer O2O platform, its massive e‑commerce traffic and data‑driven services required a cloud infrastructure that could scale with peak loads, prompting the creation of a private cloud in 2012 and a public cloud service in 2013.

From Private Cloud to Public Cloud

Meituan initially avoided a full OpenStack stack, developing its own cloud platform to meet specific virtualization and networking needs. The private cloud focused on resource dynamism, while the subsequent office cloud added account management and billing, paving the way for a robust public cloud offering.

Four Dimensions of Performance Release

Performance upgrades were made in four areas: physical links (10 GbE and 40 GbE TOR stacking, with 100 GbE inter‑datacenter links), host networking (DPDK‑accelerated packet processing, multi‑core packet handling), gateways (floating IP, load balancing, DDoS mitigation) and controllers (dynamic flow‑table management via OVS and temporary flow rules).

Overlay Architecture and VXLAN Isolation

To overcome physical scaling limits, Meituan adopted an overlay network using VXLAN, separating user VPCs from the underlay. This design provides elastic resource allocation, simplifies DNS handling for custom networks, and maintains compatibility with proven underlay protocols such as BGP and OSPF.

Future Automation and Industry Benchmark

Looking ahead, Meituan plans to increase operational automation through OpenFlow and NETCONF, enabling visual network path mapping and more efficient management, solidifying its position as an industry benchmark for cost‑effective, high‑performance cloud infrastructure.