Test ScenariosΒΆ

FD.io CSIT-2206 report includes multiple test scenarios of VPP centric applications, topologies and use cases. In addition it also covers baseline tests of DPDK sample applications. Tests are executed in physical (performance tests) and virtual environments (functional tests).

Brief overview of test scenarios covered in this report:

  1. VPP Performance: VPP performance tests are executed in physical FD.io testbeds, focusing on VPP network data plane performance in NIC-to-NIC switching topologies. Tested across Intel Cascadelake and Skylake servers, ARM, Denverton, range of NICs (10GE, 25GE, 40GE, 100GE) and multi-thread/multi-core configurations. VPP application runs in bare-metal host user-mode handling NICs. TRex is used as a traffic generator.

  2. VPP Vhostuser Performance with KVM VMs: VPP VM service switching performance tests using vhostuser virtual interface for interconnecting multiple NF-in-VM instances. VPP vswitch instance runs in bare-metal user-mode handling NICs and connecting over vhost-user interfaces to VM instances each running VPP with virtio virtual interfaces. Similarly to VPP Performance, tests are run across a range of configurations. TRex is used as a traffic generator.

  3. VPP Memif Performance with LXC and Docker Containers: VPP Container service switching performance tests using memif virtual interface for interconnecting multiple VPP-in-container instances. VPP vswitch instance runs in bare-metal user-mode handling NICs and connecting over memif (Slave side) interfaces to more instances of VPP running in LXC or in Docker Containers, both with memif interfaces (Master side). Similarly to VPP Performance, tests are run across a range of configurations. TRex is used as a traffic generator.

  4. DPDK Performance: VPP uses DPDK to drive the NICs and physical interfaces. DPDK performance tests are used as a baseline to profile performance of the DPDK sub-system. Two DPDK applications are tested: Testpmd and L3fwd. DPDK tests are executed in the same testing environment as VPP tests. DPDK Testpmd and L3fwd applications run in host user-mode. TRex is used as a traffic generator.

  5. T-Rex Performance: T-Rex perfomance tests are executed in physical FD.io testbeds, focusing on T-Rex data plane performance in NIC-to-NIC loopback topologies. Tested across Intel Skylake servers, range of NICs (10GE) and selected traffic profiles. TRex is used as a traffic generator.

  6. VPP Functional: VPP functional tests are executed in virtual FD.io testbeds, focusing on VPP packet processing functionality, including both network data plane and in-line control plane. Tests cover vNIC-to-vNIC vNIC-to-nestedVM-to-vNIC forwarding topologies. Scapy is used as a traffic generator.

All CSIT test data included in this report is auto- generated from RF output.xml files produced by LF FD.io Jenkins jobs executed against VPP-22.06 release artifacts. References are provided to the original FD.io Jenkins job results and all archived source files.

FD.io CSIT system is developed using two main coding platforms: RF and Python. CSIT-2206 source code for the executed test suites is available in CSIT branch rls2206 in the directory ./tests/<name_of_the_test_suite>. A local copy of CSIT source code can be obtained by cloning CSIT git repository - git clone https://gerrit.fd.io/r/csit.