Test Environment
================
+Environment Versioning
+----------------------
+
+In order to determine any benchmark anomalies (progressions,
+regressions) between releases of a specific data-plane DUT application
+(e.g. VPP, DPDK), the DUT needs to be tested in the same test
+environment, to avoid test environment changes impacting the results and
+clouding the picture.
+
+In order to enable test system evolution, a mirror scheme is required to
+determine benchmarking anomalies between releases of specific test
+system like CSIT. This is achieved by testing the same DUT application
+version between releases of CSIT test system.
+
+CSIT test environment versioning scheme ensures integrity of all the
+test system components, including their HW revisions, compiled SW code
+versions and SW source code, within a specific CSIT version. Components
+included in the CSIT environment versioning include:
+
+- Server hosts hardware firmware and BIOS (motherboard, processsor,
+ NIC(s), accelerator card(s)).
+- Server host Linux operating system versions.
+- Server host Linux configuration.
+- TRex Traffic Generator version, drivers and configuration.
+- CSIT framework code.
+
+Following is the list of CSIT versions to date:
+
+- Ver. 1 associated with CSIT rls1908 git branch as of 2019-08-21.
+- Ver. 2 associated with CSIT rls2001 git branch as of 2020-03-27.
+- Ver. 3 interim associated with master branch as of 2020-xx-xx.
+- Ver. 4 associated with CSIT rls2005 git branch as of 2020-06-24.
+
+To identify performance changes due to VPP code changes from v20.01.0 to
+v20.05.0, both have been tested in CSIT environment ver. 4 and compared
+against each other. All substantial progressions has been marked up with
+RCA analysis. See Current vs Previous Release and Known Issues.
+
+CSIT environment ver. 4 has been evaluated against the ver. 2 by
+benchmarking VPP v20.01.0 in both environment versions.
+
Physical Testbeds
-----------------
server as TG both connected in ring topology.
Tested SUT servers are based on a range of processors including Intel
-Xeon Haswell-SP, Intel Xeon Skylake-SP, Arm, Intel Atom. More detailed
-description is provided in
+Xeon Haswell-SP, Intel Xeon Skylake-SP, Intel Xeon Cascade Lake-SP, Arm,
+Intel Atom. More detailed description is provided in
:ref:`tested_physical_topologies`. Tested logical topologies are
described in :ref:`tested_logical_topologies`.
Complete technical specifications of compute servers used in CSIT
physical testbeds are maintained in FD.io CSIT repository:
+`FD.io CSIT testbeds - Xeon Cascade Lake`_,
`FD.io CSIT testbeds - Xeon Skylake, Arm, Atom`_ and
`FD.io CSIT Testbeds - Xeon Haswell`_.
-
-Pre-Test Server Calibration
----------------------------
-
-Number of SUT server sub-system runtime parameters have been identified
-as impacting data plane performance tests. Calibrating those parameters
-is part of FD.io CSIT pre-test activities, and includes measuring and
-reporting following:
-
-#. System level core jitter – measure duration of core interrupts by
- Linux in clock cycles and how often interrupts happen. Using
- `CPU core jitter tool <https://git.fd.io/pma_tools/tree/jitter>`_.
-
-#. Memory bandwidth – measure bandwidth with `Intel MLC tool
- <https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intelr-memory-latency-checker>`_.
-
-#. Memory latency – measure memory latency with Intel MLC tool.
-
-#. Cache latency at all levels (L1, L2, and Last Level Cache) – measure
- cache latency with Intel MLC tool.
-
-Measured values of listed parameters are especially important for
-repeatable zero packet loss throughput measurements across multiple
-system instances. Generally they come useful as a background data for
-comparing data plane performance results across disparate servers.
-
-Following sections include measured calibration data for Intel Xeon
-Haswell and Intel Xeon Skylake testbeds.
Code Review / csit.git / blobdiff