Fast Datapath Processing Based on Hop-by-Hop Packet Aggregation for Service Function Chaining

Yuki TAGUCHI; Ryota KAWASHIMA; Hiroki NAKAYAMA; Tsunemasa HAYASHI; Hiroshi MATSUO

doi:10.1587/transinf.2018EDP7444

IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information

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Fast Datapath Processing Based on Hop-by-Hop Packet Aggregation for Service Function Chaining

Yuki TAGUCHI, Ryota KAWASHIMA, Hiroki NAKAYAMA, Tsunemasa HAYASHI, Hiroshi MATSUO

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Many studies have revealed that the performance of software-based Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) is insufficient for mission-critical networks. Scaling-out approaches, such as auto-scaling of VNFs, could handle a huge amount of traffic; however, the exponential traffic growth confronts us the limitations of both expandability of physical resources and complexity of their management. In this paper, we propose a fast datapath processing method called Packet Aggregation Flow (PA-Flow) that is based on hop-by-hop packet aggregation for more efficient Service Function Chaining (SFC). PA-Flow extends a notion of existing intra-node packet aggregation toward network-wide packet aggregation, and we introduce following three novel features. First, packet I/O overheads at intermediate network devices including NFV-nodes are mitigated by reduction of packet amount. Second, aggregated packets are further aggregated as going through the service chain in a hop-by-hop manner. Finally, next-hop aware packet aggregation is realized using OpenFlow-based flow tables. PA-Flow is designed to be available with various VNF forms (e.g. VM/container/baremetal-based) and virtual I/O technologies (e.g. vhost-user/SR-IOV), and its implementation does not bring noticeable delay for aggregation. We conducted two evaluations: (i) a baseline evaluation for understanding fundamental performance characteristics of PA-Flow (ii) a simulation-based SFC evaluation for proving PA-Flow's effect in a realistic environment. The results showed that throughput of short packet forwarding was improved by 4 times. Moreover, the total number of packets was reduced by 93% in a large-scale SFC.

Publication: IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information Vol.E102-D No.11 pp.2184-2194

Publication Date: 2019/11/01

Publicized: 2019/08/22

Online ISSN: 1745-1361

DOI: 10.1587/transinf.2018EDP7444

Type of Manuscript: PAPER

Category: Information Network

Authors

Yuki TAGUCHI
  Graduate School of Engineering
Ryota KAWASHIMA
  Graduate School of Engineering
Hiroki NAKAYAMA
  BOSCO Technologies Inc.
Tsunemasa HAYASHI
  BOSCO Technologies Inc.
Hiroshi MATSUO
  Graduate School of Engineering

Keyword

Packet Aggregation, Network Functions Virtualization, Service Function Chaining, vhost-user, DPDK

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Yuki TAGUCHI, Ryota KAWASHIMA, Hiroki NAKAYAMA, Tsunemasa HAYASHI, Hiroshi MATSUO, "Fast Datapath Processing Based on Hop-by-Hop Packet Aggregation for Service Function Chaining" in IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information, vol. E102-D, no. 11, pp. 2184-2194, November 2019, doi: 10.1587/transinf.2018EDP7444.
Abstract: Many studies have revealed that the performance of software-based Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) is insufficient for mission-critical networks. Scaling-out approaches, such as auto-scaling of VNFs, could handle a huge amount of traffic; however, the exponential traffic growth confronts us the limitations of both expandability of physical resources and complexity of their management. In this paper, we propose a fast datapath processing method called Packet Aggregation Flow (PA-Flow) that is based on hop-by-hop packet aggregation for more efficient Service Function Chaining (SFC). PA-Flow extends a notion of existing intra-node packet aggregation toward network-wide packet aggregation, and we introduce following three novel features. First, packet I/O overheads at intermediate network devices including NFV-nodes are mitigated by reduction of packet amount. Second, aggregated packets are further aggregated as going through the service chain in a hop-by-hop manner. Finally, next-hop aware packet aggregation is realized using OpenFlow-based flow tables. PA-Flow is designed to be available with various VNF forms (e.g. VM/container/baremetal-based) and virtual I/O technologies (e.g. vhost-user/SR-IOV), and its implementation does not bring noticeable delay for aggregation. We conducted two evaluations: (i) a baseline evaluation for understanding fundamental performance characteristics of PA-Flow (ii) a simulation-based SFC evaluation for proving PA-Flow's effect in a realistic environment. The results showed that throughput of short packet forwarding was improved by 4 times. Moreover, the total number of packets was reduced by 93% in a large-scale SFC.
URL: https://global.ieice.org/en_transactions/information/10.1587/transinf.2018EDP7444/_p

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@ARTICLE{e102-d_11_2184,
author={Yuki TAGUCHI, Ryota KAWASHIMA, Hiroki NAKAYAMA, Tsunemasa HAYASHI, Hiroshi MATSUO, },
journal={IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information},
title={Fast Datapath Processing Based on Hop-by-Hop Packet Aggregation for Service Function Chaining},
year={2019},
volume={E102-D},
number={11},
pages={2184-2194},
abstract={Many studies have revealed that the performance of software-based Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) is insufficient for mission-critical networks. Scaling-out approaches, such as auto-scaling of VNFs, could handle a huge amount of traffic; however, the exponential traffic growth confronts us the limitations of both expandability of physical resources and complexity of their management. In this paper, we propose a fast datapath processing method called Packet Aggregation Flow (PA-Flow) that is based on hop-by-hop packet aggregation for more efficient Service Function Chaining (SFC). PA-Flow extends a notion of existing intra-node packet aggregation toward network-wide packet aggregation, and we introduce following three novel features. First, packet I/O overheads at intermediate network devices including NFV-nodes are mitigated by reduction of packet amount. Second, aggregated packets are further aggregated as going through the service chain in a hop-by-hop manner. Finally, next-hop aware packet aggregation is realized using OpenFlow-based flow tables. PA-Flow is designed to be available with various VNF forms (e.g. VM/container/baremetal-based) and virtual I/O technologies (e.g. vhost-user/SR-IOV), and its implementation does not bring noticeable delay for aggregation. We conducted two evaluations: (i) a baseline evaluation for understanding fundamental performance characteristics of PA-Flow (ii) a simulation-based SFC evaluation for proving PA-Flow's effect in a realistic environment. The results showed that throughput of short packet forwarding was improved by 4 times. Moreover, the total number of packets was reduced by 93% in a large-scale SFC.},
keywords={},
doi={10.1587/transinf.2018EDP7444},
ISSN={1745-1361},
month={November},}

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TY - JOUR
TI - Fast Datapath Processing Based on Hop-by-Hop Packet Aggregation for Service Function Chaining
T2 - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SP - 2184
EP - 2194
AU - Yuki TAGUCHI
AU - Ryota KAWASHIMA
AU - Hiroki NAKAYAMA
AU - Tsunemasa HAYASHI
AU - Hiroshi MATSUO
PY - 2019
DO - 10.1587/transinf.2018EDP7444
JO - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SN - 1745-1361
VL - E102-D
IS - 11
JA - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
Y1 - November 2019
AB - Many studies have revealed that the performance of software-based Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) is insufficient for mission-critical networks. Scaling-out approaches, such as auto-scaling of VNFs, could handle a huge amount of traffic; however, the exponential traffic growth confronts us the limitations of both expandability of physical resources and complexity of their management. In this paper, we propose a fast datapath processing method called Packet Aggregation Flow (PA-Flow) that is based on hop-by-hop packet aggregation for more efficient Service Function Chaining (SFC). PA-Flow extends a notion of existing intra-node packet aggregation toward network-wide packet aggregation, and we introduce following three novel features. First, packet I/O overheads at intermediate network devices including NFV-nodes are mitigated by reduction of packet amount. Second, aggregated packets are further aggregated as going through the service chain in a hop-by-hop manner. Finally, next-hop aware packet aggregation is realized using OpenFlow-based flow tables. PA-Flow is designed to be available with various VNF forms (e.g. VM/container/baremetal-based) and virtual I/O technologies (e.g. vhost-user/SR-IOV), and its implementation does not bring noticeable delay for aggregation. We conducted two evaluations: (i) a baseline evaluation for understanding fundamental performance characteristics of PA-Flow (ii) a simulation-based SFC evaluation for proving PA-Flow's effect in a realistic environment. The results showed that throughput of short packet forwarding was improved by 4 times. Moreover, the total number of packets was reduced by 93% in a large-scale SFC.
ER -

IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information