Accelerating Virtual Network Functions With Fast-Slow Path Architecture Using eXpress Data Path
Accelerating Virtual Network Functions With Fast-Slow Path Architecture Using eXpress Data Path
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DOI：
10.1109/tnsm.2020.3000255
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发表时间：
2020-06
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Nguyen Van Tu;Jae-Hyoung Yoo;James Won-Ki Hong
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Nguyen Van Tu;Jae-Hyoung Yoo;James Won-Ki Hong
通过将网络功能与专用的专有硬件网络设备分离，网络功能虚拟化（NFV）允许构建可以在标准的商用服务器上运行的虚拟网络功能（VNFs），从而降低成本并获得网络部署、操作和管理的灵活性。然而，构建具有高吞吐量和低延迟的VNFs是一个巨大的挑战。在本文中，我们提出了eVNF -一种混合快慢路径架构来构建和加速VNFs， eXpress数据路径（XDP）是一个Linux内核框架，可以实现高性能和可编程的网络处理。为了确保内核安全，XDP的可编程性受到了限制，因此在使用XDP加速VNFs时造成了困难。eVNF通过采用一种混合方法解决了这个问题：将简单但关键的任务留在XDP内核中，而让复杂的任务在XDP之外处理，例如，在用户空间中。使用混合架构，eVNF允许构建快速灵活的vnf。我们应用eVNF构建了四个原型vnf：流量监控（eFM）、防火墙（eFW）、深度包检测（eDPI）和负载平衡器（eLB）。这些VNFs通过OpenStack分别在sfc （service function chain）中进行评估。我们的实验表明，eVNF可以显著提高业务吞吐量，减少延迟和CPU占用。基于evnf的VNFs还可以随着CPU内核的数量向外扩展，并可以与Open vSwitch -数据平面开发工具包（OvS-DPDK）结合使用，以获得更好的性能。
By decoupling network functions from dedicated, proprietary hardware network devices, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) allows building Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) that can run on standard, commodity servers to reduce cost and gain flexibility in network deployment, operation, and management. However, building VNFs with high-throughput and low-latency is a big challenge. In this paper, we propose eVNF - a hybrid fast-slow path architecture to build and accelerate VNFs with eXpress Data Path (XDP), which is a Linux kernel framework that enables high performance and programmable network processing. The programmability of XDP is limited to ensure kernel safety, thus causing difficulties when using XDP to accelerate VNFs. eVNF solves this problem by taking a hybrid approach: leave the simple but critical tasks inside the kernel with XDP, and let complex tasks be processed outside XDP, e.g., in user-space. With the hybrid architecture, eVNF allows building fast and flexible VNFs. We applied eVNF to build four prototype VNFs: Flow Monitoring (eFM), Firewall (eFW), Deep Packet Inspection (eDPI), and Load Balancer (eLB). These VNFs are evaluated individually and in service function chains (SFCs) using OpenStack. Our experiments showed that eVNF can significantly improve service throughput as well as reduce latency and CPU usage. eVNF-based VNFs also can scale out with the number of CPU cores and can combine with Open vSwitch - Data Plane Development Kit (OvS-DPDK) for better performance.