Overview
========
+.. _tested_physical_topologies:
+
Tested Physical Topologies
--------------------------
CSIT VPP performance tests are executed on physical baremetal servers hosted by
-LF FD.io project. Testbed physical topology is shown in the figure below.
-
-::
-
- +------------------------+ +------------------------+
- | | | |
- | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ |
- | | | | | | | |
- | | <-----------------> | |
- | | DUT1 | | | | DUT2 | |
- | +--^---------------+ | | +---------------^--+ |
- | | | | | |
- | | SUT1 | | SUT2 | |
- +------------------------+ +------------------^-----+
- | |
- | |
- | +-----------+ |
- | | | |
- +------------------> TG <------------------+
- | |
- +-----------+
+:abbr:`LF (Linux Foundation)` FD.io project. Testbed physical topology is shown
+in the figure below.::
+
+ +------------------------+ +------------------------+
+ | | | |
+ | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | | <-----------------> | |
+ | | DUT1 | | | | DUT2 | |
+ | +--^---------------+ | | +---------------^--+ |
+ | | | | | |
+ | | SUT1 | | SUT2 | |
+ +------------------------+ +------------------^-----+
+ | |
+ | |
+ | +-----------+ |
+ | | | |
+ +------------------> TG <------------------+
+ | |
+ +-----------+
SUT1 and SUT2 are two System Under Test servers (Cisco UCS C240, each with two
Intel XEON CPUs), TG is a Traffic Generator (TG, another Cisco UCS C240, with
performance labs to address larger scale multi-interface and multi-NIC
performance testing scenarios.
-For test cases that require DUT (VPP) to communicate with VM(s) over vhost-user
-interfaces, N of VM instances are created on SUT1 and SUT2. For N=1 DUT (VPP)
-forwards packets between vhostuser and physical interfaces. For N>1 DUT (VPP) a
-logical service chain forwarding topology is created on DUT (VPP) by applying L2
-or IPv4/IPv6 configuration depending on the test suite.
-DUT (VPP) test topology with N VM instances
-is shown in the figure below including applicable packet flow thru the DUTs and
-VMs (marked in the figure with ``***``).
-
-::
-
- +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
- | +---------+ +---------+ | | +---------+ +---------+ |
- | | VM[1] | | VM[N] | | | | VM[1] | | VM[N] | |
- | | ***** | | ***** | | | | ***** | | ***** | |
- | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ | | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ |
- | *| |* *| |* | | *| |* *| |* |
- | +--v---v-------v---v--+ | | +--v---v-------v---v--+ |
- | | * * * * |*|***********|*| * * * * | |
- | | * ********* ***<-|-----------|->*** ********* * | |
- | | * DUT1 | | | | DUT2 * | |
- | +--^------------------+ | | +------------------^--+ |
- | *| | | |* |
- | *| SUT1 | | SUT2 |* |
- +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
- *| |*
- *| |*
- *| +-----------+ |*
- *| | | |*
- *+--------------------> TG <--------------------+*
- **********************| |**********************
- +-----------+
-
-For VM tests, packets are switched by DUT (VPP) multiple times: twice for a
-single VM, three times for two VMs, N+1 times for N VMs.
-Hence the external
-throughput rates measured by TG and listed in this report must be multiplied
-by (N+1) to represent the actual DUT aggregate packet forwarding rate.
-
-Note that reported VPP performance results are specific to the SUTs tested.
-Current LF FD.io SUTs are based on Intel XEON E5-2699v3 2.3GHz CPUs. SUTs with
-other CPUs are likely to yield different results. A good rule of thumb, that
-can be applied to estimate VPP packet thoughput for Phy-to-Phy (NIC-to-NIC,
-PCI-to-PCI) topology, is to expect the forwarding performance to be
-proportional to CPU core frequency, assuming CPU is the only limiting factor
-and all other SUT parameters equivalent to FD.io CSIT environment. The same rule
-of thumb can be also applied for Phy-to-VM-to-Phy (NIC-to-VM-to-NIC) topology,
-but due to much higher dependency on intensive memory operations and
-sensitivity to Linux kernel scheduler settings and behaviour, this estimation
-may not always yield good enough accuracy.
-
-For detailed LF FD.io test bed specification and physical topology please refer
-to `LF FDio CSIT testbed wiki page <https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/CSIT_LF_testbed>`_.
+For service chain topology test cases that require DUT (VPP) to communicate with
+VirtualMachines (VMs) or with Linux/Docker Containers (Ctrs) over
+vhost-user/memif interfaces, N of VM/Ctr instances are created on SUT1
+and SUT2. Three types of service chain topologies are tested in CSIT |release|:
+
+#. "Parallel" topology with packets flowing from NIC via DUT (VPP) to
+ VM/Container and back to VPP and NIC;
+
+#. "Chained" topology (a.k.a. "Snake") with packets flowing via DUT (VPP) to
+ VM/Container, back to DUT, then to the next VM/Container, back to DUT and
+ so on until the last VM/Container in a chain, then back to DUT and NIC;
+
+#. "Horizontal" topology with packets flowing via DUT (VPP) to Container,
+ then via "horizontal" memif to the next Container, and so on until the
+ last Container, then back to DUT and NIC. "Horizontal" topology is not
+ supported for VMs;
+
+For each of the above topologies, DUT (VPP) is tested in a range of L2
+or IPv4/IPv6 configurations depending on the test suite. A sample DUT
+"Chained" service topology with N of VM/Ctr instances is shown in the
+figure below. Packet flow thru the DUTs and VMs/Ctrs is marked with
+``***``::
+
+ +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
+ | +---------+ +---------+ | | +---------+ +---------+ |
+ | |VM/Ctr[1]| |VM/Ctr[N]| | | |VM/Ctr[1]| |VM/Ctr[N]| |
+ | | ***** | | ***** | | | | ***** | | ***** | |
+ | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ | | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ |
+ | *| |* *| |* | | *| |* *| |* |
+ | +--v---v-------v---v--+ | | +--v---v-------v---v--+ |
+ | | * * * * |*|***********|*| * * * * | |
+ | | * ********* ***<-|-----------|->*** ********* * | |
+ | | * DUT1 | | | | DUT2 * | |
+ | +--^------------------+ | | +------------------^--+ |
+ | *| | | |* |
+ | *| SUT1 | | SUT2 |* |
+ +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
+ *| |*
+ *| |*
+ *| +-----------+ |*
+ *| | | |*
+ *+--------------------> TG <--------------------+*
+ **********************| |**********************
+ +-----------+
+
+In above "Chained" topology, packets are switched by DUT multiple times:
+twice for a single VM/Ctr, three times for two VMs/Ctrs, N+1 times for N
+VMs/Ctrs. Hence the external throughput rates measured by TG and listed
+in this report must be multiplied by (N+1) to represent the actual DUT
+aggregate packet forwarding rate.
+
+For a "Parallel" and "Horizontal" service topologies packets are always
+switched by DUT twice per service chain.
+
+Note that reported DUT (VPP) performance results are specific to the SUTs
+tested. Current :abbr:`LF (Linux Foundation)` FD.io SUTs are based on Intel
+XEON E5-2699v3 2.3GHz CPUs. SUTs with other CPUs are likely to yield different
+results. A good rule of thumb, that can be applied to estimate VPP packet
+thoughput for Phy-to-Phy (NIC-to-NIC, PCI-to-PCI) topology, is to expect
+the forwarding performance to be proportional to CPU core frequency,
+assuming CPU is the only limiting factor and all other SUT parameters
+equivalent to FD.io CSIT environment. The same rule of thumb can be also
+applied for Phy-to-VM/Ctr-to-Phy (NIC-to-VM/Ctr-to-NIC) topology, but due to
+much higher dependency on intensive memory operations and sensitivity to Linux
+kernel scheduler settings and behaviour, this estimation may not always yield
+good enough accuracy.
+
+For detailed FD.io CSIT testbed specification and topology, as well as
+configuration and setup of SUTs and DUTs testbeds please refer to
+:ref:`test_environment`.
+
+Similar SUT compute node can be arrived to in a standalone VPP setup by using a
+`vpp-config configuration tool
+<https://wiki.fd.io/view/VPP/Configuration_Tool>`_ developed within the
+VPP project using CSIT recommended settings and scripts.
Performance Tests Coverage
--------------------------
-Performance tests are split into the two main categories:
+Performance tests are split into two main categories:
- Throughput discovery - discovery of packet forwarding rate using binary search
- in accordance to RFC2544.
+ in accordance to :rfc:`2544`.
- NDR - discovery of Non Drop Rate packet throughput, at zero packet loss;
followed by one-way packet latency measurements at 10%, 50% and 100% of
currently set to 0.5%; followed by one-way packet latency measurements at
100% of discovered PDR throughput.
-- Throughput verification - verification of packet forwarding rate against
- previously discovered throughput rate. These tests are currently done against
- 0.9 of reference NDR, with reference rates updated periodically.
-
CSIT |release| includes following performance test suites, listed per NIC type:
- 2port10GE X520-DA2 Intel
VLAN tagged Ethernet frames.
- **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
with MAC learning; disabled MAC learning i.e. static MAC tests to be added.
+ - **L2BD Scale** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet
+ frames with MAC learning; disabled MAC learning i.e. static MAC tests to be
+ added with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
- **IPv4** - IPv4 routed-forwarding.
- **IPv6** - IPv6 routed-forwarding.
- **IPv4 Scale** - IPv4 routed-forwarding with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
of 2 VMs using vhost-user interfaces, with VPP forwarding modes incl. L2
Cross-Connect, L2 Bridge-Domain, VXLAN with L2BD, IPv4 routed-forwarding.
- **COP** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with COP address security.
- - **iACL** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with iACL address security.
+ - **ACL** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding and IPv4 and IPv6 routed-
+ forwarding with iACL and oACL IP address, MAC address and L4 port security.
- **LISP** - LISP overlay tunneling for IPv4-over-IPv4, IPv6-over-IPv4,
IPv6-over-IPv6, IPv4-over-IPv6 in IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding modes.
- **VXLAN** - VXLAN overlay tunnelling integration with L2XC and L2BD.
- **QoS Policer** - ingress packet rate measuring, marking and limiting
(IPv4).
+ - **NAT** - (Source) Network Address Translation tests with varying
+ number of users and ports per user.
+ - **Container memif connections** - VPP memif virtual interface tests to
+ interconnect VPP instances with L2XC and L2BD.
+ - **Container K8s Orchestrated Topologies** - Container topologies connected
+ over the memif virtual interface.
+ - **SRv6** - Segment Routing IPv6 tests.
- 2port40GE XL710 Intel
- **VMs with vhost-user** - virtual topologies with 1 VM and service chains
of 2 VMs using vhost-user interfaces, with VPP forwarding modes incl. L2
Cross-Connect, L2 Bridge-Domain, VXLAN with L2BD, IPv4 routed-forwarding.
- - **IPSec** - IPSec encryption with AES-GCM, CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in combination
- with IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPSecSW** - IPSec encryption with AES-GCM, CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in
+ combination with IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPSecHW** - IPSec encryption with AES-GCM, CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in
+ combination with IPv4 routed-forwarding. Intel QAT HW acceleration.
- **IPSec+LISP** - IPSec encryption with CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in combination
with LISP-GPE overlay tunneling for IPv4-over-IPv4.
+ - **VPP TCP/IP stack** - tests of VPP TCP/IP stack used with VPP built-in HTTP
+ server.
+ - **Container memif connections** - VPP memif virtual interface tests to
+ interconnect VPP instances with L2XC and L2BD.
- 2port10GE X710 Intel
with MAC learning.
- **VMs with vhost-user** - virtual topologies with 1 VM using vhost-user
interfaces, with VPP forwarding modes incl. L2 Bridge-Domain.
+ - **Container memif connections** - VPP memif virtual interface tests to
+ interconnect VPP instances with L2XC and L2BD.
+ - **Container K8s Orchestrated Topologies** - Container topologies connected
+ over the memif virtual interface.
- 2port10GE VIC1227 Cisco
Execution of performance tests takes time, especially the throughput discovery
tests. Due to limited HW testbed resources available within FD.io labs hosted
-by Linux Foundation, the number of tests for NICs other than X520 (a.k.a.
-Niantic) has been limited to few baseline tests. Over time we expect the HW
-testbed resources to grow, and will be adding complete set of performance
-tests for all models of hardware to be executed regularly and(or)
-continuously.
+by :abbr:`LF (Linux Foundation)`, the number of tests for NICs other than X520
+(a.k.a. Niantic) has been limited to few baseline tests. CSIT team expect the
+HW testbed resources to grow over time, so that complete set of performance
+tests can be regularly and(or) continuously executed against all models of
+hardware present in FD.io labs.
Performance Tests Naming
------------------------
-CSIT |release| follows a common structured naming convention for all
-performance and system functional tests, introduced in CSIT rls1701.
+CSIT |release| follows a common structured naming convention for all performance
+and system functional tests, introduced in CSIT |release-1|.
-The naming should be intuitive for majority of the tests. Complete
-description of CSIT test naming convention is provided on `CSIT test naming wiki
+The naming should be intuitive for majority of the tests. Complete description
+of CSIT test naming convention is provided on `CSIT test naming wiki
<https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-test-naming>`_.
-Here few illustrative examples of the new naming usage for performance test
-suites:
-
-#. **Physical port to physical port - a.k.a. NIC-to-NIC, Phy-to-Phy, P2P**
-
- - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
- PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-TestType*
- - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
- Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline switching
- with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrchk.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE
- on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline
- switching with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4-ip4base-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on Intel
- x520 NIC, IPv4 baseline routed forwarding, NDR throughput discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip6-ip6scale200k-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
- Intel x520 NIC, IPv6 scaled up routed forwarding, NDR throughput
- discovery.
-
-#. **Physical port to VM (or VM chain) to physical port - a.k.a. NIC2VM2NIC,
- P2V2P, NIC2VMchain2NIC, P2V2V2P**
-
- - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
- PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-VirtEncapsulation-
- VirtPortConfig-VMconfig-TestType*
- - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports
- of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
- switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
- discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
- ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
- switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
- discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-4vhost-2vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
- ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
- switching to/from four vhost interfaces and two VMs, NDR throughput
- discovery.
-
-Methodology: Multi-Thread and Multi-Core
-----------------------------------------
-
-**HyperThreading** - CSIT |release| performance tests are executed with SUT
-servers' Intel XEON CPUs configured in HyperThreading Disabled mode (BIOS
-settings). This is the simplest configuration used to establish baseline
-single-thread single-core SW packet processing and forwarding performance.
-Subsequent releases of CSIT will add performance tests with Intel
-HyperThreading Enabled (requires BIOS settings change and hard reboot).
-
-**Multi-core Test** - CSIT |release| multi-core tests are executed in the
+Methodology: Multi-Core and Multi-Threading
+-------------------------------------------
+
+**Intel Hyper-Threading** - CSIT |release| performance tests are executed with
+SUT servers' Intel XEON processors configured in Intel Hyper-Threading Disabled
+mode (BIOS setting). This is the simplest configuration used to establish
+baseline single-thread single-core application packet processing and forwarding
+performance. Subsequent releases of CSIT will add performance tests with Intel
+Hyper-Threading Enabled (requires BIOS settings change and hard reboot of
+server).
+
+**Multi-core Tests** - CSIT |release| multi-core tests are executed in the
following VPP thread and core configurations:
#. 1t1c - 1 VPP worker thread on 1 CPU physical core.
#. 2t2c - 2 VPP worker threads on 2 CPU physical cores.
+#. 4t4c - 4 VPP worker threads on 4 CPU physical cores.
-Note that in quite a few test cases running VPP on 2 physical cores hits
-the tested NIC I/O bandwidth or packets-per-second limit.
+VPP worker threads are the data plane threads. VPP control thread is
+running on a separate non-isolated core together with other Linux
+processes. Note that in quite a few test cases running VPP workers on 2
+or 4 physical cores hits the I/O bandwidth or packets-per-second limit
+of tested NIC.
+
+Section :ref:`throughput_speedup_multi_core` includes a set of graphs
+illustrating packet throughout speedup when running VPP on multiple
+cores.
Methodology: Packet Throughput
------------------------------
Following values are measured and reported for packet throughput tests:
-- NDR binary search per RFC2544:
+- NDR binary search per :rfc:`2544`:
- Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps
- (2x <per direction packets-per-second>)"
+ (2x <per direction packets-per-second>)";
- Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
- second> Gbps (untagged)"
+ second> Gbps (untagged)";
-- PDR binary search per RFC2544:
+- PDR binary search per :rfc:`2544`:
- Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps (2x
- <per direction packets-per-second>)"
+ <per direction packets-per-second>)";
- Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
- second> Gbps (untagged)"
+ second> Gbps (untagged)";
- Packet loss tolerance: "LOSS_ACCEPTANCE <accepted percentage of packets
- lost at PDR rate>""
+ lost at PDR rate>";
- NDR and PDR are measured for the following L2 frame sizes:
- - IPv4: 64B, IMIX_v4_1 (28x64B,16x570B,4x1518B), 1518B, 9000B.
- - IPv6: 78B, 1518B, 9000B.
+ - IPv4: 64B, IMIX_v4_1 (28x64B,16x570B,4x1518B), 1518B, 9000B;
+ - IPv6: 78B, 1518B, 9000B;
+
+- NDR and PDR binary search resolution is determined by the final value of the
+ rate change, referred to as the final step:
+
+ - The final step is set to 50kpps for all NIC to NIC tests and all L2
+ frame sizes except 9000B (changed from 100kpps used in previous
+ releases).
+ - The final step is set to 10kpps for all remaining tests, including 9000B
+ and all vhost VM and memif Container tests.
+
+All rates are reported from external Traffic Generator perspective.
Methodology: Packet Latency
---------------------------
Methodology: KVM VM vhost
-------------------------
-CSIT |release| introduced environment configuration changes to KVM Qemu vhost-
-user tests in order to more representatively measure VPP-17.04 performance in
-configurations with vhost-user interfaces and VMs.
+CSIT |release| introduced test environment configuration changes to KVM Qemu
+vhost-user tests in order to more representatively measure |vpp-release|
+performance in configurations with vhost-user interfaces and different Qemu
+settings.
+
+FD.io CSIT performance lab is testing VPP vhost with KVM VMs using following
+environment settings:
+
+- Tests with varying Qemu virtio queue (a.k.a. vring) sizes: [vr256] default 256
+ descriptors, [vr1024] 1024 descriptors to optimize for packet throughput;
+
+- Tests with varying Linux :abbr:`CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler)` settings:
+ [cfs] default settings, [cfsrr1] CFS RoundRobin(1) policy applied to all data
+ plane threads handling test packet path including all VPP worker threads and
+ all Qemu testpmd poll-mode threads;
+
+- Resulting test cases are all combinations with [vr256,vr1024] and
+ [cfs,cfsrr1] settings;
+
+- Adjusted Linux kernel :abbr:`CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler)` scheduler policy
+ for data plane threads used in CSIT is documented in
+ `CSIT Performance Environment Tuning wiki <https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-perf-env-tuning-ubuntu1604>`_.
+ The purpose is to verify performance impact (NDR, PDR throughput) and
+ same test measurements repeatability, by making VPP and VM data plane
+ threads less susceptible to other Linux OS system tasks hijacking CPU
+ cores running those data plane threads.
+
+Methodology: LXC and Docker Containers memif
+--------------------------------------------
+
+CSIT |release| introduced additional tests taking advantage of VPP memif virtual
+interface (shared memory interface) tests to interconnect VPP instances. VPP
+vswitch instance runs in bare-metal user-mode handling Intel x520 NIC 10GbE,
+Intel x710 NIC 10GbE, Intel xl710 NIC 40GbE interfaces and connecting over memif
+(Slave side) virtual interfaces to more instances of VPP running in
+:abbr:`LXC (Linux Container)` or in Docker Containers, both with memif virtual
+interfaces (Master side). LXCs and Docker Containers run in a priviliged mode
+with VPP data plane worker threads pinned to dedicated physical CPU cores per
+usual CSIT practice. All VPP instances run the same version of software.
+This test topology is equivalent to existing tests with vhost-user and
+VMs as described earlier in :ref:`tested_physical_topologies`.
+
+More information about CSIT LXC and Docker Container setup and control
+is available in :ref:`container_orchestration_in_csit`.
+
+Methodology: Container Topologies Orchestrated by K8s
+-----------------------------------------------------
+
+CSIT |release| introduced new tests of Container topologies connected
+over the memif virtual interface (shared memory interface). In order to
+provide simple topology coding flexibility and extensibility container
+orchestration is done with `Kubernetes <https://github.com/kubernetes>`_
+using `Docker <https://github.com/docker>`_ images for all container
+applications including VPP. `Ligato <https://github.com/ligato>`_ is
+used to address the container networking orchestration that is
+integrated with K8s, including memif support.
+
+For these tests VPP vswitch instance runs in a Docker Container handling
+Intel x520 NIC 10GbE, Intel x710 NIC 10GbE interfaces and connecting over memif
+virtual interfaces to more instances of VPP running in Docker Containers
+with memif virtual interfaces. All Docker Containers run in a priviliged mode
+with VPP data plane worker threads pinned to dedicated physical CPU cores per
+usual CSIT practice. All VPP instances run the same version of software. This
+test topology is equivalent to existing tests with vhost-user and VMs as
+described earlier in :ref:`tested_physical_topologies`.
+
+More information about CSIT Container Topologies Orchestrated by K8s is
+available in :ref:`container_orchestration_in_csit`.
+
+Methodology: IPSec with Intel QAT HW cards
+------------------------------------------
+
+VPP IPSec performance tests are using DPDK cryptodev device driver in
+combination with HW cryptodev devices - Intel QAT 8950 50G - present in
+LF FD.io physical testbeds. DPDK cryptodev can be used for all IPSec
+data plane functions supported by VPP.
+
+Currently CSIT |release| implements following IPSec test cases:
+
+- AES-GCM, CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in combination with IPv4 routed-forwarding
+ with Intel xl710 NIC.
+- CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in combination with LISP-GPE overlay tunneling for
+ IPv4-over-IPv4 with Intel xl710 NIC.
+
+Methodology: TRex Traffic Generator Usage
+-----------------------------------------
+
+`TRex traffic generator <https://wiki.fd.io/view/TRex>`_ is used for all
+CSIT performance tests. TRex stateless mode is used to measure NDR and PDR
+throughputs using binary search (NDR and PDR discovery tests) and for quick
+checks of DUT performance against the reference NDRs (NDR check tests) for
+specific configuration.
+
+TRex is installed and run on the TG compute node. The typical procedure is:
+
+- If the TRex is not already installed on TG, it is installed in the
+ suite setup phase - see `TRex intallation`_.
+- TRex configuration is set in its configuration file
+ ::
+
+ /etc/trex_cfg.yaml
+
+- TRex is started in the background mode
+ ::
+
+ $ sh -c 'cd <t-rex-install-dir>/scripts/ && sudo nohup ./t-rex-64 -i -c 7 --iom 0 > /tmp/trex.log 2>&1 &' > /dev/null
+
+- There are traffic streams dynamically prepared for each test, based on traffic
+ profiles. The traffic is sent and the statistics obtained using
+ :command:`trex_stl_lib.api.STLClient`.
+
+**Measuring packet loss**
+
+- Create an instance of STLClient
+- Connect to the client
+- Add all streams
+- Clear statistics
+- Send the traffic for defined time
+- Get the statistics
+
+If there is a warm-up phase required, the traffic is sent also before test and
+the statistics are ignored.
+
+**Measuring latency**
+
+If measurement of latency is requested, two more packet streams are created (one
+for each direction) with TRex flow_stats parameter set to STLFlowLatencyStats. In
+that case, returned statistics will also include min/avg/max latency values.
+
+Methodology: TCP/IP tests with WRK tool
+---------------------------------------
+
+`WRK HTTP benchmarking tool <https://github.com/wg/wrk>`_ is used for
+experimental TCP/IP and HTTP tests of VPP TCP/IP stack and built-in
+static HTTP server. WRK has been chosen as it is capable of generating
+significant TCP/IP and HTTP loads by scaling number of threads across
+multi-core processors.
+
+This in turn enables quite high scale benchmarking of the main TCP/IP
+and HTTP service including HTTP TCP/IP Connections-Per-Second (CPS),
+HTTP Requests-Per-Second and HTTP Bandwidth Throughput.
+
+The initial tests are designed as follows:
+
+- HTTP and TCP/IP Connections-Per-Second (CPS)
+
+ - WRK configured to use 8 threads across 8 cores, 1 thread per core.
+ - Maximum of 50 concurrent connections across all WRK threads.
+ - Timeout for server responses set to 5 seconds.
+ - Test duration is 30 seconds.
+ - Expected HTTP test sequence:
+
+ - Single HTTP GET Request sent per open connection.
+ - Connection close after valid HTTP reply.
+ - Resulting flow sequence - 8 packets: >S,<S-A,>A,>Req,<Rep,>F,<F,> A.
-Current setup of CSIT FD.io performance lab is using tuned settings for more
-optimal performance of KVM Qemu:
+- HTTP Requests-Per-Second
-- Qemu virtio queue size has been increased from default value of 256 to 1024
- descriptors.
-- Adjusted Linux kernel CFS scheduler settings, as detailed on this CSIT wiki
- page: https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-perf-env-tuning-ubuntu1604.
+ - WRK configured to use 8 threads across 8 cores, 1 thread per core.
+ - Maximum of 50 concurrent connections across all WRK threads.
+ - Timeout for server responses set to 5 seconds.
+ - Test duration is 30 seconds.
+ - Expected HTTP test sequence:
-Adjusted Linux kernel CFS settings make the NDR and PDR throughput performance
-of VPP+VM system less sensitive to other Linux OS system tasks by reducing
-their interference on CPU cores that are designated for critical software
-tasks under test, namely VPP worker threads in host and Testpmd threads in
-guest dealing with data plan.
+ - Multiple HTTP GET Requests sent in sequence per open connection.
+ - Connection close after set test duration time.
+ - Resulting flow sequence: >S,<S-A,>A,>Req[1],<Rep[1],..,>Req[n],<Rep[n],>F,<F,>A.