High performance, low-latency < 7uS 1⁄2 RTT UDP latencyBidirectional line rate, both ports (40G) with < 20% CPU load – Stateless offloads (TSO, LRO, RSS)Performance scales with multiple CPU coresFull integration into Linux kernelDriver “intree” (kernel.org)Wide distribution and kernel supportIntegration with ethtool, MTD, hwmon (sensors)Actively improving Linux networkingSolarflare is the maintainer of “ethtool”Linux kernel RFS offload in hardware (w/Google)Multiple OpenSource and FreeBSD productsWe also do Windows and Solaris
Manage and configure LANs and IPFlat, Flat DHCP, VLAN DHCP, IPv6Programmatically allocate IPs and VLANsfor rapid provisioning of network capabilities and security featuresFloating IP addressesAbility to assign (and re-assign) IP addresses to VMsSecurity GroupsFlexibility to assign and control access to VM instances by creating separation between resource pools Role based access control (RBAC)Set up security by user, role, and project
TRADITIONALHypervisor emulates network hardwareFlexible!But, performance is poorLimits the workloads that can be virtualizedUses CPU cyclesTYPICAL with SR IOVNetwork driver binds directly to the PCIe VFNear native networking performanceBut, no longer virtualNo migrationPLUG INMaintains traditional software pathPlus VF pathNear native performanceKeep full virtualization features (e.g. migration)RSS within guest VMs127 VFs, 1024 VNICs
1:30:Solarflare’s unique approach to SR-IOV combines the benefits of accelerated cut-through performance while maintaining full compatibility with hypervisor-based services and management tools. In addition to improved performance and superior manageability, Solarflare adapters scale up to 254 VFs, each of which can support multiple DMA channels (up to a total of 2048), providing far more scalable workload consolidation for large data center environments and virtual desktop (VDI) deployments than is otherwise available from competitive products. To further improve performance, Solarflare adapters utilize the available DMA channels within a VF to support Receive Side Scaling (RSS) for guest VMs, spreading VM workloads across many CPU cores enabling performance to scale with the number of CPU cores.This chart illustrates the dramatic performance difference between SR-IOV and hypervisor-based I/O. The data taken for uni-directional traffic and bi-directional traffic for both single-port and dual-port server adapters. The setup consisted of two back to back physical hosts with 4 VMs each, and performance data was taken for single-VM and quad-VM operation.The red bars illustrate Solarflare’s benchmark results demonstrate that with SR-IOV performance increases to near line-rate, as the red bars approach the 10Gbps, 20Gbps and 40Gbps I/O performance levels. This represents up to a 5x performance improvement with SR-IOV. In all cases, except one Solarflare SR-IOV benchmarks at near line rate performance. The one exception is for a single VM which cannot generate enough bandwidth.Thank you for listening to how you can increase your KVM I/O performance and scalability, while simplifying your SR-IOV configuration and management for VM migration.And now I would like to return you to our moderator Richio Aikawa. Richio…