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===================================
Network Services Benchmarking (NSB)
===================================

Abstract
========

.. _Yardstick: https://wiki.opnfv.org/yardstick

This chapter provides an overview of the NSB, a contribution to OPNFV
Yardstick_ from Intel.

Overview
========

The goal of NSB is to Extend Yardstick to perform real world VNFs and NFVi
Characterization and benchmarking with repeatable and deterministic methods.

The Network Service Benchmarking (NSB) extends the yardstick framework to do
VNF characterization and benchmarking in three different execution
environments - bare metal i.e. native Linux environment, standalone virtual
environment and managed virtualized environment (e.g. Open stack etc.).
It also brings in the capability to interact with external traffic generators
both hardware & software based for triggering and validating the traffic
according to user defined profiles.

NSB extension includes:

    - Generic data models of Network Services, based on ETSI spec `ETSI GS NFV-TST 001 <http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gs/NFV-TST/001_099/001/01.01.01_60/gs_nfv-tst001v010101p.pdf>`_

    - New Standalone context for VNF testing like SRIOV, OVS, OVS-DPDK etc

    - Generic VNF configuration models and metrics implemented with Python
      classes

    - Traffic generator features and traffic profiles

        - L1-L3 state-less traffic profiles

        - L4-L7 state-full  traffic  profiles

        - Tunneling protocol / network overlay support

    - Test case samples

        - Ping

        - Trex

        - vPE,vCGNAT, vFirewall etc - ipv4 throughput, latency etc

    - Traffic generators like Trex, ab/nginx, ixia, iperf etc

    - KPIs for a given use case:

        - System agent support for collecting NFVi KPI. This includes:

            - CPU statistic

            - Memory BW

            - OVS-DPDK Stats

        - Network KPIs,  e.g., inpackets, outpackets, thoughput, latency etc

        - VNF KPIs, e.g., packet_in, packet_drop, packet_fwd etc

Architecture
============

The Network Service (NS) defines a set of Virtual Network Functions (VNF)
connected together using NFV infrastructure.

The Yardstick NSB extension can support multiple VNFs created by different
vendors including traffic generators. Every VNF being tested has its
own data model. The Network service defines a VNF modelling on base of
performed network functionality. The part of the data model is a set of the
configuration parameters, number of connection points used and flavor including
core and memory amount.

The ETSI defines a Network Service as a set of configurable VNFs working in
some NFV Infrastructure connecting each other using Virtual Links available
through Connection Points. The ETSI MANO specification defines a set of
management entities called Network Service Descriptors (NSD) and
VNF Descriptors (VNFD) that define real Network Service. The picture below
makes an example how the real Network Operator use-case can map into ETSI
Network service definition

Network Service framework performs the necessary test steps. It may involve

    - Interacting with traffic generator and providing the inputs on traffic
      type / packet structure to generate the required traffic as per the
      test case. Traffic profiles will be used for this.

    - Executing the commands required for the test procedure and analyses the
      command output for confirming whether the command got executed correctly
      or not. E.g. As per the test case, run the traffic for the given
      time period / wait for the necessary time delay

    - Verify the test result.

    - Validate the traffic flow from SUT

    - Fetch the table / data from SUT and verify the value as per the test case

    - Upload the logs from SUT onto the Test Harness server

    - Read the KPI's provided by particular VNF

Components of Network Service
-----------------------------

  * *Models for Network Service benchmarking*: The Network Service benchmarking
    requires the proper modelling approach. The NSB provides models using Python
    files and defining of NSDs and VNFDs.

  The benchmark control application being a part of OPNFV yardstick can call
  that python models to instantiate and configure the VNFs. Depending on
  infrastructure type (bare-metal or fully virtualized) that calls could be
  made directly or using MANO system.

  * *Traffic generators in NSB*: Any benchmark application requires a set of
    traffic generator and traffic profiles defining the method in which traffic
    is generated.

  The Network Service benchmarking model extends the Network Service
  definition with a set of Traffic Generators (TG) that are treated
  same way as other VNFs being a part of benchmarked network service.
  Same as other VNFs the traffic generator are instantiated and terminated.

  Every traffic generator has own configuration defined as a traffic profile
  and a set of KPIs supported. The python models for TG is extended by
  specific calls to listen and generate traffic.

  * *The stateless TREX traffic generator*: The main traffic generator used as
    Network Service stimulus is open source TREX tool.

  The TREX tool can generate any kind of stateless traffic.

  .. code-block:: console

          +--------+      +-------+      +--------+
          |        |      |       |      |        |
          |  Trex  | ---> |  VNF  | ---> |  Trex  |
          |        |      |       |      |        |
          +--------+      +-------+      +--------+

  Supported testcases scenarios:

      - Correlated UDP traffic using TREX traffic generator and replay VNF.

          - using different IMIX configuration like pure voice, pure video traffic etc

          - using different number IP flows like 1 flow, 1K, 16K, 64K, 256K, 1M flows

          - Using different number of rules configured like 1 rule, 1K, 10K rules

  For UDP correlated traffic following Key Performance Indicators are collected
  for every combination of test case parameters:

      - RFC2544 throughput for various loss rate defined (1% is a default)

Graphical Overview
==================

NSB Testing with yardstick framework  facilitate performance testing of various
VNFs provided.

.. code-block:: console

  +-----------+
  |           |                                                     +-----------+
  |   vPE     |                                                   ->|TGen Port 0|
  | TestCase  |                                                   | +-----------+
  |           |                                                   |
  +-----------+     +------------------+            +-------+     |
                    |                  | -- API --> |  VNF  | <--->
  +-----------+     |     Yardstick    |            +-------+     |
  | Test Case | --> |    NSB Testing   |                          |
  +-----------+     |                  |                          |
        |           |                  |                          |
        |           +------------------+                          |
  +-----------+                                                   | +-----------+
  |   Traffic |                                                   ->|TGen Port 1|
  |  patterns |                                                     +-----------+
  +-----------+

              Figure 1: Network Service - 2 server configuration

VNFs supported for chracterization:
-----------------------------------

1. CGNAPT - Carrier Grade Network Address and port Translation
2. vFW - Virtual Firewall
3. vACL - Access Control List
4. Prox - Packet pROcessing eXecution engine:
    - VNF can act as Drop, Basic Forwarding (no touch),
      L2 Forwarding (change MAC), GRE encap/decap, Load balance based on
      packet fields, Symmetric load balancing
    - QinQ encap/decap IPv4/IPv6, ARP, QoS, Routing, Unmpls, Policing, ACL
5. UDP_Replay