Considerations for Benchmarking Virtual Network Functions and Their Infrastructure
RFC 8172
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) A. Morton
Request for Comments: 8172 AT&T Labs
Category: Informational July 2017
ISSN: 2070-1721
Considerations for Benchmarking Virtual Network Functions
and Their Infrastructure
Abstract
The Benchmarking Methodology Working Group has traditionally
conducted laboratory characterization of dedicated physical
implementations of internetworking functions. This memo investigates
additional considerations when network functions are virtualized and
performed in general-purpose hardware.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8172.
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Morton Informational [Page 1]
RFC 8172 Benchmarking VNFs and Related Infrastructure July 2017
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Considerations for Hardware and Testing . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Hardware Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. Configuration Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3. Testing Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.4. Attention to Shared Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Benchmarking Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. Comparison with Physical Network Functions . . . . . . . 8
4.2. Continued Emphasis on Black-Box Benchmarks . . . . . . . 8
4.3. New Benchmarks and Related Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.4. Assessment of Benchmark Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.5. Power Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1. Introduction
The Benchmarking Methodology Working Group (BMWG) has traditionally
conducted laboratory characterization of dedicated physical
implementations of internetworking functions (or physical network
functions (PNFs)). The black-box benchmarks of throughput, latency,
forwarding rates, and others have served our industry for many years.
[RFC1242] and [RFC2544] are the cornerstones of the work.
A set of service provider and vendor development goals has emerged:
reduce costs while increasing flexibility of network devices and
drastically reduce deployment time. Network Function Virtualization
(NFV) has the promise to achieve these goals and therefore has
garnered much attention. It now seems certain that some network
functions will be virtualized following the success of cloud
computing and virtual desktops supported by sufficient network path
capacity, performance, and widespread deployment; many of the same
techniques will help achieve NFV.
In the context of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), the supporting
Infrastructure requires general-purpose computing systems, storage
systems, networking systems, virtualization support systems (such as
hypervisors), and management systems for the virtual and physical
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