---
title: About Calico
---

{{site.prodname}} provides secure network connectivity for 
containers and virtual machine workloads.

{{site.prodname}} creates and manages a flat layer 3 network, 
assigning each workload a fully routable IP address. 
Workloads can communicate without IP encapsulation 
or network address translation for bare metal 
performance, easier troubleshooting, and better 
interoperability. In environments that require an 
overlay, {{site.prodname}} uses IP-in-IP tunneling or can work 
with other overlay networking such as flannel.

{{site.prodname}} also provides dynamic enforcement of network 
security rules. Using {{site.prodname}}'s simple policy language, 
you can achieve fine-grained control over communications 
between containers, virtual machine workloads, and 
bare metal host endpoints.

Proven in production at scale, {{site.prodname}} features 
integrations with Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker, 
Mesos, DC/OS, and OpenStack.

<a href="/{{page.version}}/getting-started/" class="btn btn-primary btn-lg">Get started</a>