path: root/test_spec/ietf_summary/draft-vsperf-bmwg-vswitch-opnfv-00.xml

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<rfc category="info" docName="draft-vsperf-bmwg-vswitch-opnfv-00"
     ipr="trust200902">
  <front>
    <title abbrev="Benchmarking vSwitches">Benchmarking Virtual Switches in
    OPNFV</title>

    <author fullname="Maryam Tahhan" initials="M." surname="Tahhan">
      <organization>Intel</organization>

      <address>
        <postal>
          <street/>

          <city/>

          <region/>

          <code/>

          <country/>
        </postal>

        <phone/>

        <facsimile/>

        <email/>

        <uri/>
      </address>
    </author>

    <author fullname="Billy O Mahony" initials="B." surname="O Mahony">
      <organization>Intel</organization>

      <address>
        <postal>
          <street/>

          <city/>

          <region/>

          <code/>

          <country/>
        </postal>

        <phone/>

        <facsimile/>

        <email/>

        <uri/>
      </address>
    </author>

    <author fullname="Al Morton" initials="A." surname="Morton">
      <organization>AT&amp;T Labs</organization>

      <address>
        <postal>
          <street>200 Laurel Avenue South</street>

          <city>Middletown,</city>

          <region>NJ</region>

          <code>07748</code>

          <country>USA</country>
        </postal>

        <phone>+1 732 420 1571</phone>

        <facsimile>+1 732 368 1192</facsimile>

        <email>acmorton@att.com</email>

        <uri>http://home.comcast.net/~acmacm/</uri>
      </address>
    </author>

    <date day="6" month="June" year="2015"/>

    <abstract>
      <t>This memo describes the progress of the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV)
      project on virtual switch performance "VSWITCHPERF". This project
      intends to build on the current and completed work of the Benchmarking
      Methodology Working Group in IETF, by referencing existing literature.
      The Benchmarking Methodology Working Group has traditionally conducted
      laboratory characterization of dedicated physical implementations of
      internetworking functions. Therefore, this memo begins to describes the
      additional considerations when virtual switches are implemented in
      general-purpose hardware. The expanded tests and benchmarks are also
      influenced by the OPNFV mission to support virtualization of the "telco"
      infrastructure.</t>
    </abstract>

    <note title="Requirements Language">
      <t>The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
      "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
      document are to be interpreted as described in <xref
      target="RFC2119">RFC 2119</xref>.</t>

      <t/>
    </note>
  </front>

  <middle>
    <section title="Introduction">
      <t>Benchmarking Methodology Working Group (BMWG) has traditionally
      conducted laboratory characterization of dedicated physical
      implementations of internetworking functions. The Black-box Benchmarks
      of Throughput, Latency, Forwarding Rates and others have served our
      industry for many years. Now, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has
      the goal to transform how internetwork functions are implemented, and
      therefore has garnered much attention.</t>

      <t>This memo describes the progress of the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV)
      project on virtual switch performance characterization, "VSWITCHPERF".
      This project intends to build on the current and completed work of the
      Benchmarking Methodology Working Group in IETF, by referencing existing
      literature. For example, currently the most referenced RFC is <xref
      target="RFC2544"/> (which depens on <xref target="RFC1242"/>) and
      foundation of the benchmarking work in OPNFV is common and strong.</t>

      <t>See
      https://wiki.opnfv.org/characterize_vswitch_performance_for_telco_nfv_use_cases
      for more background, and the OPNFV website for general information:
      https://www.opnfv.org/</t>

      <t>The authors note that OPNFV distinguishes itself from other open
      source compute and networking projects through its emphasis on existing
      "telco" services as opposed to cloud-computing. There are many ways in
      which telco requirements have different emhasis on performance
      dimensions when compared to cloud computing: support for and transfer of
      isochronous media streams is one example.</t>

      <t>Note also that the move to NFV Infrastructure has resulted in many
      new benchmarking initiatives across the industry, and the authors are
      currently doing their best to maintain alignment with many other
      projects, and this Internet Draft is evidence of the efforts.</t>
    </section>

    <section title="Scope">
      <t>The primary purpose and scope of the memo is to inform BMWG of
      work-in-progress that builds on the body of extensive literature and
      experience. Additionally, once the initial information conveyed here is
      received, this memo may be expanded to include more detail and
      commentary from both BMWG and OPNFV communities, under BMWG's chartered
      work to characterize the NFV Infrastructure (a virtual switch is an
      important aspect of that infrastructure).</t>
    </section>

    <section title="Benchmarking Considerations">
      <t>This section highlights some specific considerations (from <xref
      target="ID.ietf-bmwg-virtual-net"/>)related to Benchmarks for virtual
      switches.</t>

      <section title="Comparison with Physical Network Functions">
        <t>To compare the performance of virtual designs and implementations
        with their physical counterparts, identical benchmarks are needed.
        BMWG has developed specifications for many network functions this memo
        re-uses existing benchmarks through references, and expands them
        during development of new methods. A key configuration aspect is the
        number of parallel cores required to achieve comparable performance
        with a given physical device, or whether some limit of scale was
        reached before the cores could achieve the comparable level. </t>

        <t>It's unlikely that the virtual switch will be the only application
        running on the SUT, so CPU utilization, Cache utilization, and Memory
        footprint should also be recorded for the virtual implementations of
        internetworking functions.</t>
      </section>

      <section title="Continued Emphasis on Black-Box Benchmarks">
        <t>External observations remain essential as the basis for Benchmarks.
        Internal observations with fixed specification and interpretation will
        be provided in parallel to assist the development of operations
        procedures when the technology is deployed. </t>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section title="VSWITCHPERF Specification Summary">
      <t>The overall specification in preparation is referred to as a Level
      Test Design (LTD) document, which will contain a suite of performace
      tests.</t>

      <t>As one might expect, the most fundamental internetworking
      characteristics of Throughput and Latency remain important when the
      switch is virtualized, and these benchmarks figure prominently in the
      specification.</t>

      <t>When considering characteristics important to "telco" network
      functions, we must begin to consider additional performance metrics. In
      this case, the project specifications have referenced metrics from the
      IETF IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) literature. This means that the <xref
      target="RFC2544"/> test of Latency is replaced by measurement of a
      metric derived from IPPM's <xref target="RFC2679"/>, where a set of
      statistical summaries will be provided (mean, max, min, etc.). Further
      metrics planned to be benchmarked include packet delay variation as
      defined by <xref target="RFC5481"/> , reordering, burst behaviour, DUT
      availability, DUT capacity and packet loss in long term testing at
      Throughput level, where some low-level of background loss may be present
      and characterized.</t>

      <t>Tests have been (or will be) designed to collect the metrics
      below:</t>

      <t><list style="symbols">
          <t>Throughput Tests to measure the maximum forwarding rate (in
          frames per second or fps) and bit rate (in Mbps) for a constant load
          (as defined by RFC1242) without traffic loss.</t>

          <t>Packet and Frame Delay Distribution Tests to measure average, min
          and max packet and frame delay for constant loads.</t>

          <t>Packet Delay Tests to understand latency distribution for
          different packet sizes and over an extended test run to uncover
          outliers.</t>

          <t>Scalability Tests to understand how the virtual switch performs
          as the number of flows, active ports, complexity of the forwarding
          logic&rsquo;s configuration&hellip; it has to deal with
          increases.</t>

          <t>Stream Performance Tests (TCP, UDP) to measure bulk data transfer
          performance, i.e. how fast systems can send and receive data through
          the switch.</t>

          <t>Request/Response Performance Tests (TCP, UDP) the measure the
          transaction rate through the switch.</t>

          <t>Control Path and Datapath Coupling Tests, to understand how
          closely coupled the datapath and the control path are as well as the
          effect of this coupling on the performance of the DUT (example:
          delay of the initial packet of a flow).</t>

          <t>Noisy Neighbour Tests, to understand the effects of resource
          sharing on the performance of a virtual switch.</t>

          <t>CPU and Memory Consumption Tests to understand the virtual
          switch&rsquo;s footprint on the system, usually conducted as
          auxilliary measurements with benchmarks above. They include: CPU
          utilization, Cache utilization and Memory footprint.</t>
        </list></t>

      <t>The felixability of deployemnt of a virtual switch within a network
      means that the BMWG IETF existing literature needs to be used to
      characterize the performance of a switch in various deployment
      scenarios. The deployment scenarios under consideration include:</t>

      <t><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to physical
          port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                         __
    +--------------------------------------------------+   |
    |              +--------------------+              |   |
    |              |                    |              |   |
    |              |                    v              |   |  Host
    |   +--------------+            +--------------+   |   |
    |   |   phy port   |  vSwitch   |   phy port   |   |   |
    +---+--------------+------------+--------------+---+ __|
               ^                           :
               |                           |
               :                           v
    +--------------------------------------------------+
    |                                                  |
    |                traffic generator                 |
    |                                                  |
    +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure></t>

      <t><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to VNF to virtual switch
          to physical port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                          __
    +---------------------------------------------------+   |
    |                                                   |   |
    |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
    |   |                 Application               |   |   |
    |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
    |       ^                                  :        |   |
    |       |                                  |        |   |  Guest
    |       :                                  v        |   |
    |   +---------------+           +---------------+   |   |
    |   | logical port 0|           | logical port 1|   |   |
    +---+---------------+-----------+---------------+---+ __|
            ^                                  :
            |                                  |
            :                                  v         __
    +---+---------------+----------+---------------+---+   |
    |   | logical port 0|          | logical port 1|   |   |
    |   +---------------+          +---------------+   |   |
    |       ^                                  :       |   |
    |       |                                  |       |   |  Host
    |       :                                  v       |   |
    |   +--------------+            +--------------+   |   |
    |   |   phy port   |  vSwitch   |   phy port   |   |   |
    +---+--------------+------------+--------------+---+ __|
               ^                           :
               |                           |
               :                           v
    +--------------------------------------------------+
    |                                                  |
    |                traffic generator                 |
    |                                                  |
    +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to VNF to virtual switch
          to VNF to virtual switch to physical port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                   __
 +----------------------+  +----------------------+  |
 |   Guest 1            |  |   Guest 2            |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   |  Application  |  |  |   |  Application  |  |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |       ^       |      |  |       ^       |      |  |
 |       |       v      |  |       |       v      |  |  Guests
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   | logical ports |  |  |   | logical ports |  |  |
 |   |   0       1   |  |  |   |   0       1   |  |  |
 +---+---------------+--+  +---+---------------+--+__|
         ^       :                 ^       :
         |       |                 |       |
         :       v                 :       v       _
 +---+---------------+---------+---------------+--+ |
 |   |   0       1   |         |   3       4   |  | |
 |   | logical ports |         | logical ports |  | |
 |   +---------------+         +---------------+  | |
 |       ^       |                 ^       |      | |  Host
 |       |       L-----------------+       v      | |
 |   +--------------+          +--------------+   | |
 |   |   phy ports  | vSwitch  |   phy ports  |   | |
 +---+--------------+----------+--------------+---+_|
         ^       :                 ^       :
         |       |                 |       |
         :       v                 :       v
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to VNF</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                          __
    +---------------------------------------------------+   |
    |                                                   |   |
    |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
    |   |                 Application               |   |   |
    |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
    |       ^                                           |   |
    |       |                                           |   |  Guest
    |       :                                           |   |
    |   +---------------+                               |   |
    |   | logical port 0|                               |   |
    +---+---------------+-------------------------------+ __|
            ^
            |
            :                                            __
    +---+---------------+------------------------------+   |
    |   | logical port 0|                              |   |
    |   +---------------+                              |   |
    |       ^                                          |   |
    |       |                                          |   |  Host
    |       :                                          |   |
    |   +--------------+                               |   |
    |   |   phy port   |  vSwitch                      |   |
    +---+--------------+------------ -------------- ---+ __|
               ^
               |
               :
    +--------------------------------------------------+
    |                                                  |
    |                traffic generator                 |
    |                                                  |
    +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble>VNF to virtual switch to physical port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                          __
    +---------------------------------------------------+   |
    |                                                   |   |
    |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
    |   |                 Application               |   |   |
    |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
    |                                          :        |   |
    |                                          |        |   |  Guest
    |                                          v        |   |
    |                               +---------------+   |   |
    |                               | logical port  |   |   |
    +-------------------------------+---------------+---+ __|
                                               :
                                               |
                                               v         __
    +------------------------------+---------------+---+   |
    |                              | logical port  |   |   |
    |                              +---------------+   |   |
    |                                          :       |   |
    |                                          |       |   |  Host
    |                                          v       |   |
    |                               +--------------+   |   |
    |                     vSwitch   |   phy port   |   |   |
    +-------------------------------+--------------+---+ __|
                                           :
                                           |
                                           v
    +--------------------------------------------------+
    |                                                  |
    |                traffic generator                 |
    |                                                  |
    +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble> VNF to virtual switch to VNF</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                   __
 +----------------------+  +----------------------+  |
 |   Guest 1            |  |   Guest 2            |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   |  Application  |  |  |   |  Application  |  |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |              |       |  |       ^              |  |
 |              v       |  |       |              |  |  Guests
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   | logical ports |  |  |   | logical ports |  |  |
 |   |           0   |  |  |   |   0           |  |  |
 +---+---------------+--+  +---+---------------+--+__|
                 :                 ^
                 |                 |
                 v                 :               _
 +---+---------------+---------+---------------+--+ |
 |   |           1   |         |   1           |  | |
 |   | logical ports |         | logical ports |  | |
 |   +---------------+         +---------------+  | |
 |               |                 ^              | |  Host
 |               L-----------------+              | |
 |                                                | |
 |                    vSwitch                     | |
 +------------------------------------------------+_|

]]></artwork>
        </figure></t>
    </section>

    <section title="Security Considerations">
      <t>Benchmarking activities as described in this memo are limited to
      technology characterization of a Device Under Test/System Under Test
      (DUT/SUT) using controlled stimuli in a laboratory environment, with
      dedicated address space and the constraints specified in the sections
      above.</t>

      <t>The benchmarking network topology will be an independent test setup
      and MUST NOT be connected to devices that may forward the test traffic
      into a production network, or misroute traffic to the test management
      network.</t>

      <t>Further, benchmarking is performed on a "black-box" basis, relying
      solely on measurements observable external to the DUT/SUT.</t>

      <t>Special capabilities SHOULD NOT exist in the DUT/SUT specifically for
      benchmarking purposes. Any implications for network security arising
      from the DUT/SUT SHOULD be identical in the lab and in production
      networks.</t>
    </section>

    <section anchor="IANA" title="IANA Considerations">
      <t>No IANA Action is requested at this time.</t>
    </section>

    <section title="Acknowledgements">
      <t>The authors acknowledge</t>
    </section>
  </middle>

  <back>
    <references title="Normative References">
      <?rfc ?>

      <?rfc include="reference.RFC.2119"?>

      <?rfc include="reference.RFC.2330"?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2544'?>

      <?rfc include="reference.RFC.2679"?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2680'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.3393'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.3432'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2681'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.5905'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.4689'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.4737'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.5357'?>

      <reference anchor="NFV.PER001">
        <front>
          <title>Network Function Virtualization: Performance and Portability
          Best Practices</title>

          <author fullname="ETSI NFV" initials="" surname="">
            <organization/>
          </author>

          <date month="June" year="2014"/>
        </front>

        <seriesInfo name="Group Specification"
                    value="ETSI GS NFV-PER 001 V1.1.1 (2014-06)"/>

        <format type="PDF"/>
      </reference>
    </references>

    <references title="Informative References">
      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.1242'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.5481'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.6049'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.6248'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.6390'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.ID.ietf-bmwg-virtual-net'?>
    </references>
  </back>
</rfc>