Open vSwitch 2014 Fall Conference: OVS Acceleration Approaches

Open vSwitch 2014 Fall Conference: OVS Acceleration Approaches

presented by: Johann Tonsing and Robert Truesdell, Netronome

Standard OVS implementations provided in Linux distributions have become a popular method for flow-based forwarding in end-server applications as well as networking and security services. However, many designers are finding that the combination of software-based OVS and CPU intensive applications result in lower than desired system performance. New proposals have begun to emerge that accelerate OVS’s network-to-network and network-to-host forwarding performance by selectively offloading OVS and Linux networking functions. These can include: group select for load balancing, tunnel termination for VTEPs, flow lookups, actions, QoS, metering, statistics, and bulk cryptography. This presentation will introduce Netronome’s Network Flow Processor-based software architecture to support this acceleration approach, associated performance data, and include recommendations for evolution of the software.