[csit.git] / docs / report / vpp_performance_tests_hw / csit_release_notes.rst

CSIT Release Notes\r
==================\r
\r
Changes in CSIT |release|\r
-------------------------\r
\r
#. Naming change for all VPP performance test suites and test cases.\r
#. VPP performance test environment changes\r
\r
    - upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04\r
    - VM and vhost-user test environment optimizations\r
    - addition of HW cryptodev devices in LFD FD.io physical testbed\r
\r
\r
#. Added tests\r
\r
    - new NICs - Intel x710, Cisco VIC1385, Cisco VIC1227\r
    - more VM vhost-user tests\r
    - more LISP tests\r
\r
\r
Performance Tests Naming\r
------------------------\r
\r
CSIT |release| introduced a common structured naming convention for all\r
performance and functional tests. This change was driven by substantially\r
growing number and type of CSIT test cases. Firstly, the original practice did\r
not always follow any strict naming convention. Secondly test names did not\r
always clearly capture tested packet encapsulations, and the actual type or\r
content of the tests. Thirdly HW configurations in terms of NICs, ports and\r
their locality were not captured either. These were but few reasons that drove\r
the decision to change and define a new more complete and stricter test naming\r
convention, and to apply this to all existing and new test cases.\r
\r
The new naming should be intuitive for majority of the tests. The complete\r
description of CSIT test naming convention is provided on `CSIT test naming wiki\r
<https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-test-naming>`_.\r
\r
Here few illustrative examples of the new naming usage for performance test\r
suites:\r
\r
#. **Physical port to physical port - a.k.a. NIC-to-NIC, Phy-to-Phy, P2P**\r
\r
    - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-\r
      PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-TestType*\r
    - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on\r
      Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline switching\r
      with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.\r
    - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrchk.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE\r
      on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline\r
      switching with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.\r
    - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4-ip4base-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on Intel\r
      x520 NIC, IPv4 baseline routed forwarding, NDR throughput discovery.\r
    - *10ge2p1x520-ethip6-ip6scale200k-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on\r
      Intel x520 NIC, IPv6 scaled up routed forwarding, NDR throughput\r
      discovery.\r
\r
#. **Physical port to VM (or VM chain) to physical port - a.k.a. NIC2VM2NIC,\r
   P2V2P, NIC2VMchain2NIC, P2V2V2P**\r
\r
    - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-\r
      PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-VirtEncapsulation-\r
      VirtPortConfig-VMconfig-TestType*\r
    - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports\r
      of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain\r
      switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput\r
      discovery.\r
    - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2\r
      ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain\r
      switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput\r
      discovery.\r
    - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-4vhost-2vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2\r
      ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain\r
      switching to/from four vhost interfaces and two VMs, NDR throughput\r
      discovery.\r
\r
Measured Performance Improvements\r
---------------------------------\r
\r
Substantial improvements in measured packet throughput have been observed\r
in VPP-17.01 for the following CSIT |release| tests:\r
\r
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------+----------------------+\r
| VPP Functionality | Test Name                                                      | VPP-16.09 | VPP-17.01       | Relative Improvement |\r
+===================+================================================================+===========+=================+======================+\r
| L2XC              | 10ge2p1x520:64B-1t1c-eth-l2xcbase-ndrdisc                      | 9.4 Mpps  | 12.6..12.9 Mpps | 34..37%              |\r
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------+----------------------+\r
| L2XC              | 10ge2p1xl710:64B-1t1c-eth-l2xcbase-ndrdisc                     | 9.5 Mpps  | 12.1..12.4 Mpps | 27..30%              |\r
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------+----------------------+\r
| L2BD              | 10ge2p1x520:64B-1t1c-eth-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrdisc                | 7.8 Mpps  | 10.6 Mpps       | 36%                  |\r
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------+----------------------+\r
| L2BD-vhost-VM     | 10ge2p1x520:64B-1t1c-eth-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc | 0.4 Mpps  | 2.8 Mpps        | 600%                 |\r
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------+----------------------+\r
| L2XC-vhost-VM     | 10ge2p1x520:64B-1t1c-eth-l2xcbase-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc       | 0.4 Mpps  | 3.2 Mpps        | 700%                 |\r
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------+----------------------+\r
| IPv4              | 10ge2p1x520:64B-1t1c-ethip4-ip4base-ndrdisc                    | 8.7 Mpps  | 9.7 Mpps        | 12%                  |\r
+-------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------------+----------------------+\r
\r
This is in line with VPP code optimizations listed in `VPP-17.01 release notes\r
<https://docs.fd.io/vpp/17.01/release_notes_1701.html>`_.\r
\r
vhost-VM performance improvement is also due to Linux KVM test environment\r
optimization for vhost-VM tests - see section below "VM vhost-user\r
Throughput Measurements".\r
\r
Multi-Thread and Multi-Core Measurements\r
----------------------------------------\r
\r
**HyperThreading** - CSIT |release| performance tests are executed with SUT\r
servers' Intel XEON CPUs configured in HyperThreading Disabled mode (BIOS\r
settings). This is the simplest configuration used to establish baseline\r
single-thread single-core SW packet processing and forwarding performance.\r
Subsequent releases of CSIT will add performance tests with Intel\r
HyperThreading Enabled (requires BIOS settings change and hard reboot).\r
\r
**Multi-core Test** - CSIT |release| multi-core tests are executed in the\r
following VPP thread and core configurations:\r
\r
#. 1t1c - 1 VPP worker thread on 1 CPU physical core.\r
#. 2t2c - 2 VPP worker threads on 2 CPU physical cores.\r
#. 4t4c - 4 VPP threads on 4 CPU physical cores.\r
\r
Note that in quite a few test cases running VPP on 2 or 4 physical cores hits\r
the tested NIC I/O bandwidth or packets-per-second limit.\r
\r
Packet Throughput Measurements\r
------------------------------\r
\r
Following values are measured and reported for packet throughput tests:\r
\r
- NDR binary search per RFC2544:\r
\r
  - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps\r
    (2x <per direction packets-per-second>)"\r
  - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per\r
    second> Gbps (untagged)"\r
\r
- PDR binary search per RFC2544:\r
\r
  - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps (2x\r
    <per direction packets-per-second>)"\r
  - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per\r
    second> Gbps (untagged)"\r
  - Packet loss tolerance: "LOSS_ACCEPTANCE <accepted percentage of packets\r
    lost at PDR rate>""\r
\r
- NDR and PDR are measured for the following L2 frame sizes:\r
\r
  - IPv4: 64B, IMIX_v4_1 (28x64B,16x570B,4x1518B), 1518B, 9000B.\r
  - IPv6: 78B, 1518B, 9000B.\r
\r
\r
Packet Latency Measurements\r
---------------------------\r
\r
TRex Traffic Generator (TG) is used for measuring latency of VPP DUTs. Reported\r
latency values are measured using following methodology:\r
\r
- Latency tests are performed at 10%, 50% of discovered NDR rate (non drop rate)\r
  for each NDR throughput test and packet size (except IMIX).\r
- TG sends dedicated latency streams, one per direction, each at the rate of\r
  10kpps at the prescribed packet size; these are sent in addition to the main\r
  load streams.\r
- TG reports min/avg/max latency values per stream direction, hence two sets\r
  of latency values are reported per test case; future release of TRex is\r
  expected to report latency percentiles.\r
- Reported latency values are aggregate across two SUTs due to three node\r
  topology used for all performance tests; for per SUT latency, reported value\r
  should be divided by two.\r
- 1usec is the measurement accuracy advertised by TRex TG for the setup used in\r
  FD.io labs used by CSIT project.\r
- TRex setup introduces an always-on error of about 2*2usec per latency flow -\r
  additonal Tx/Rx interface latency induced by TRex SW writing and reading\r
  packet timestamps on CPU cores without HW acceleration on NICs closer to the\r
  interface line.\r
\r
\r
KVM VM vhost Measurements\r
-------------------------\r
\r
CSIT |release| introduced environment configuration changes to KVM Qemu vhost-\r
user tests in order to more representatively measure VPP-17.01 performance in\r
configurations with vhost-user interfaces and VMs.\r
\r
Current setup of CSIT FD.io performance lab is using tuned settings for more\r
optimal performance of KVM Qemu:\r
\r
- Default Qemu virtio queue size of 256 descriptors.\r
- Adjusted Linux kernel CFS scheduler settings, as detailed on this CSIT wiki\r
  page: https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/VM-vhost-env-tuning.\r
\r
Adjusted Linux kernel CFS settings make the NDR and PDR throughput performance\r
of VPP+VM system less sensitive to other Linux OS system tasks by reducing\r
their interference on CPU cores that are designated for critical software\r
tasks under test, namely VPP worker threads in host and Testpmd threads in\r
guest dealing with data plan.\r
\r
Report Addendum Tests - Cryptodev\r
---------------------------------\r
\r
DPDK Cryptodev functionality support for both SW and HW crypto devices has\r
been introduced in VPP-17.01 release. CSIT functional and performance tests\r
have been also developed and merged. However due to the factors beyond CSIT\r
project control execution of those tests within the LF FD.io test environment\r
still need to complete. Once the results become available, they will be\r
published as an addendum to the current version of CSIT |release| report.\r
\r
Report Addendum Tests - Centos\r
------------------------------\r
\r
CSIT |release| added Centos functional test execution environment in FD.io\r
VIRL testbeds.However due to the factors beyond CSIT project control execution\r
of those tests within the LF FD.io test environment still need to complete.\r
Once the results become available, they will be published as an addendum to\r
the current version of CSIT |release| report.\r
\r
Report Addendum Tests - SNAT44\r
------------------------------\r
\r
VPP SNAT44 functionality has been introduced in VPP-17.01 release. CSIT\r
performance tests are still in development and integration into LFD FD.io test\r
environment. Once the tests are fully integrated and results become available,\r
they will be published as an addendum to the current version of CSIT |release|\r
report.\r
\r
Known Issues\r
------------\r
\r
Here is the list of known issues in CSIT |release| for VPP performance tests in physical HW testbed:\r
\r
+---+-------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+\r
| # | Issue                                           | Description                                                     |\r
+---+-------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+\r
| 1 | Sporadic IPv4 routed-forwwarding NDR discovery  | Suspected issue with DPDK IPv4 checksum calculation, VPP jira # |\r
|   | test failures for 1518B frame size              | Observed frequency: sporadic, ca. 20% to 30% of test runs       |\r
+---+-------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+\r
|   |                                                 |                                                                 |\r
+---+-------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+\r
|   |                                                 |                                                                 |\r
+---+-------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+\r