+.. _vpp_performance_tests_release_notes:
+
Release Notes
=============
#. VPP PERFORMANCE TESTS
- - **MRR Throughput**: MRR (Maximum Receive Rate) test code has now
- configurable trial duration and number of consecutive executions.
- Coverage of MRR tests has been extended across more test
- scenarios. MRR tests are used for continuous performance trending
- and for comparison between VPP releases.
-
- - **MLRsearch Throughput**: MLRsearch algorithm has been introduced
- for all NDR and PDR throughput tests. All tests that previously
- used binary search got converted to MLRsearch. Coverage of NDR/PDR
- tests has been extended across more test scenarios.
-
- - **L2patch Tests**: Tests measure performance of VPP L2patch, the
- fastest L2 forwarding path implemented in VPP, that cross-links
- RX and TX of two physical interfaces.
-
- - **2-Node Tests**: A new baseline set of 2-node tests covering base
- ip4, ip6, l2patch, l2bd, l2xc, running on new Xeon Skylake
- testbeds.
-
- - **Generated tests**: Simplified and unified test structure, semi-
- autogenerated by generator script. Test generator is currently
- able to create test combinations with various frame size and
- cores combinations. All existing test cases were converted to new
- format.
-
- - **Simultaneous Multi-Threading**: SMT-aware detection of server
- processor operation mode (HyperThreading enabled/disabled) with
- associated compute resource configuration including thread
- affinity, number of Rx queues and DPDK I/O mbufs. Tests are
- automatically tagged during execution to indicate executed thread
- configuration.
-
- - **Intel Xeon Skylake Support**: Support for 2-Node and 3-Node
- physical testbed topologies based on the new SuperMirco servers
- each with two Intel Xeon Skylake Platinum processors. Full
- Ansible playbooks refactor for quick server (re)installation and
- reference pointers of configuration.
+ - **AF_XDP**: Added af_xdp driver support for all test cases. Test
+ results will be added in sub-sequent CSIT-2106 report.
+
+ - **GTPU tunnel**: Added GTPU HW Offload IPv4 routing tests.
+
+ - **Intel Xeon Ice Lake**: Added initial test data for these
+ platforms. Current CSIT-2106 report data for Intel Xeon Ice Lake
+ comes from an external source (Intel labs running CSIT code on
+ "8360Y D Stepping" and "6338N" processors). For details about the
+ physical setup see :ref:`tested_physical_topologies`. Tested
+ VPP and CSIT versions are pre-release, VPP
+ 21.06-rc0~779-gd640ae52f.
+
+ - **MLRsearch improvements**: Added support for multiple packet
+ throughput rates in a single search, each rate is associated
+ with a distinct Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) criterion. Previously
+ only Non Drop Rate (NDR) (PLR=0) and single Partial Drop Rate
+ (PDR) (PLR<0.5%) were supported. Implemented number of
+ optimizations improving rate discovery efficiency.
+
+ - **Reduction of tests**: Removed obsolete VPP use cases and
+ superfluous test combinations from continuous and report test
+ executions, including:
+
+ - All vts tests, obsolete use cases.
+ - dot1q tests apart from dot1q-l2bd, superfluous combinations.
+ - -100flows, -100kflows in all acl tests.
+ - nat44 tests
+
+ - -pps tests, replaced by -tput tests.
+ - h1-p1-s1 single session tests, unessential combination.
+ - h4096-p63-s258048 tests, unessential scale combination.
+
+ - ipsec tests
+
+ - ethip4ipsectptlispgpe.
+ - policy-aes128gcm.
+ - policy-aes128cbc-hmac256sha.
+ - policy-aes128cbc-hmac512sha.
+ - int-aes128cbc-hmac256sha.
+ - scale of
+
+ - 400tnlsw.
+ - 5000tnlsw.
+ - 20000tnlsw.
+ - 60000tnlsw.
+
+#. TEST FRAMEWORK
+
+ - **Telemetry retouch**: Refactored telemetry retrieval from DUTs and
+ SUTs. Included VPP perfmon plugin telemetry with all perfmon
+ bundles available in VPP release.
+
+ - **Upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS**: Re-installed base operating system
+ to Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS. Upgrade included also baseline Docker
+ containers used for spawning topology.
+
+ - **CSIT test environment** version has been updated to ver. 7, see
+ :ref:`test_environment_versioning`.
+
+ - **CSIT in AWS environment**: Added CSIT support for AWS c5n
+ instances environment. Test results will be added in sub-sequent
+ CSIT-2106 report.
+
+ - **CSIT PAPI support**: Due to issues with PAPI performance, VAT is
+ still used in CSIT for all VPP scale tests. See known issues
+ below.
+
+ - **General Code Housekeeping**: Ongoing code optimizations and bug
+ fixes.
#. PRESENTATION AND ANALYTICS LAYER
- - **Performance trending**: Further improvements of continuous
- performance trending, anomaly detection and analysis.
+ - **Graphs improvements**: Updated Packet Latency graphs,
+ see :ref:`latency_methodology`.
+
+.. raw:: latex
-#. TEST FRAMEWORK OPTIMIZATIONS
+ \clearpage
- - **General Code Housekeeping**: Ongoing RF keywords optimizations,
- removal of redundant RF keywords.
+.. _vpp_known_issues:
Known Issues
------------
List of known issues in |csit-release| for VPP performance tests:
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| # | JiraID | Issue Description |
-+===+=========================================+=================================================================================================================================+
-| 1 | `CSIT-570 | Sporadic (1 in 200) NDR discovery test failures on x520. DPDK reporting rx-errors, indicating L1 issue. |
-| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-570>`_ | Suspected issue with HW combination of X710-X520 in LF testbeds. Not observed outside of LF testbeds. |
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| 2 | `VPP-1361 | High failure rate of api call sw_interface_set_flags [admin-up|link-up]. |
-| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/VPP-1361>`_ | Failure rate: 30-40% of tests failing due to interfaces not in link-up state after API call sw_interface_set_flags. |
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| 3 | `CSIT-1234 | VPP IPSecHW scale interface mode 1core, low NDR and PDR 64B throughput in 3n-hsw testbeds, in CSIT-18.07 vs. CSIT-18.04. |
-| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1234>`_ | ip4ipsecscale1000tnl-ip4base-int 1core CSIT-18.07/18.04 relative change: NDR -31%, PDR -32%, MRR -38%. |
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| 4 | `CSIT-1242 | VPP xl710 ip4base test 1core, low NDR and PDR 64B throughput in 3n-hsw testbeds, in CSIT-18.07 vs. CSIT-18.04. |
-| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1242>`_ | xl710 ip4base 1core CSIT-18.07/18.04 relative change: NDR -29%, high stdev. |
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| 5 | `CSIT-1243 | VPP nat44 base test 2core, low NDR and PDR 64B throughput in 3n-skx testbeds, compared to 3n-hsw testbeds. |
-| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1243>`_ | ip4base-nat44 2core 3n-skx/3n-hsw relative change: NDR -19%, PDR -22%. |
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| 6 | `CSIT-1244 | VPP lispip4 base test 2core, low NDR and PDR 64B throughput in 3n-skx testbeds, compared to 3n-hsw testbeds. |
-| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1244>`_ | ip4lispip4-ip4base 2core 3n-skx/3n-hsw relative change: NDR -11%, PDR -18%. |
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| 7 | `CSIT-1245 | VPP srv6proxy-stat and srv6proxy-masq, much higher NDR and PDR 78B throughput in 3n-hsw testbeds, in CSIT-18.07 vs. CSIT-18.04. |
-| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1245>`_ | Due to wrong test suite configuration in dynamic-proxy mode. Artefact of suite code refactoring. |
-+---+-----------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
++----+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+| # | JiraID | Issue Description |
++====+=========================================+===========================================================================================================+
+| 1 | `CSIT-1782 | Multicore AVF tests are failing when trying to create interface. |
+| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1782>`_ | |
++----+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+| 2 | `CSIT-1763 | Adapt ramp-up phase of nat44 tests for different frame sizes. |
+| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1763>`_ | Currently ramp-up phase rate and duration values are correctly set for tests with 64B frame size. |
++----+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+| 3 | `CSIT-1671 | All CSIT scale tests can not use PAPI due to much slower performance compared to VAT/CLI (it takes much |
+| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1671>`_ | longer to program VPP). This needs to be addressed on the PAPI side. |
+| +-----------------------------------------+ The usual PAPI library spends too much time parsing arguments, so even with async processing (hundreds of |
+| | `VPP-1763 | commands in flight over socket), the VPP configuration for large scale tests (millions of messages) takes |
+| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/VPP-1763>`_ | too long. |
++----+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+| 4 | `CSIT-1789 | AVF driver does not perform RSS in a deterministic way. |
+| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/CSIT-1789>`_ | This increases standard deviation of tests with small number of flows (mainly ipsec). |
++----+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+Root Cause Analysis for Performance Changes
+-------------------------------------------
+
+List of RCAs in |csit-release| for VPP performance changes:
+
++----+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
+| # | JiraID | Issue Description |
++====+=========================================+===========================================================================================================+
+| 1 | `VPP-1972 | One VPP change has decreased performance of NAT44ed processing, both slow path and fast path. |
+| | <https://jira.fd.io/browse/VPP-1972>`_ | |
++----+-----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+