Considerations for Benchmarking Virtual Network Functions and Their Infrastructure
RFC 8172
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RFC - Informational
(July 2017; No errata)
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Last updated |
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2017-07-31
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Replaces |
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draft-morton-bmwg-virtual-net
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IETF
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plain text
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html
bibtex
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WG state
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Submitted to IESG for Publication
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Document shepherd |
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Sarah Banks
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Shepherd write-up |
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Show
(last changed 2017-01-20)
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| IESG |
IESG state |
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RFC 8172 (Informational)
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Consensus Boilerplate |
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Yes
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Responsible AD |
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Joel Jaeggli
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Send notices to |
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"Sarah Banks" <sbanks@encrypted.net>
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| IANA |
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IANA action state |
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No IC
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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.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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
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