research-article

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Metron: High-performance NFV Service Chaining Even in the Presence of Blackboxes

Authors:

Georgios P. Katsikas,

JR. Gerald Q. Maguire,

Rebecca SteinertAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS), Volume 38, Issue 1-2

Article No.: 3, Pages 1 - 45

https://doi.org/10.1145/3465628

Published: 08 July 2021 Publication History

All formats PDF

Abstract

Deployment of 100Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) links challenges the packet processing limits of commodity hardware used for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). Moreover, realizing chained network functions (i.e., service chains) necessitates the use of multiple CPU cores, or even multiple servers, to process packets from such high speed links.

Our system Metron jointly exploits the underlying network and commodity servers’ resources: (i) to offload part of the packet processing logic to the network, (ii) by using smart tagging to setup and exploit the affinity of traffic classes, and (iii) by using tag-based hardware dispatching to carry out the remaining packet processing at the speed of the servers’ cores, with zero inter-core communication. Moreover, Metron transparently integrates, manages, and load balances proprietary “blackboxes” together with Metron service chains.

Metron realizes stateful network functions at the speed of 100GbE network cards on a single server, while elastically and rapidly adapting to changing workload volumes. Our experiments demonstrate that Metron service chains can coexist with heterogeneous blackboxes, while still leveraging Metron’s accurate dispatching and load balancing. In summary, Metron has (i) 2.75–8× better efficiency, up to (ii) 4.7× lower latency, and (iii) 7.8× higher throughput than OpenBox, a state-of-the-art NFV system.

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Cited By

Yin XSong EYang YWang YYang BLu JLi XLyu BWen RHe SShu YZhu S(2024)vSwitchLB: Stratified Load Balancing for vSwitch Efficiency in Data CentersProceedings of the 8th Asia-Pacific Workshop on Networking10.1145/3663408.3663422(95-101)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663408.3663422
Sherry J(2024)The I/O Driven Server: From SmartNICs to Data Movement ControllersACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review10.1145/3649171.364917453:3(9-17)Online publication date: 20-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649171.3649174
Ma ZLi TXu ZFonseca NZhu Z(2024)SFCache: Hybrid NF Synthesization in Runtime With Rule-Caching in Programmable SwitchesIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2024.339014021:4(4613-4624)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNSM.2024.3390140
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Metron: High-performance NFV Service Chaining Even in the Presence of Blackboxes
1. Networks
  1. Network performance evaluation
    1. Network performance analysis
  2. Network services
    1. In-network processing
    2. Programmable networks

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computer Systems

ACM Transactions on Computer Systems Volume 38, Issue 1-2

May 2020

178 pages

ISSN:0734-2071

EISSN:1557-7333

DOI:10.1145/3474395

Editor:
Michael Swift
University of Wisconsin, USA

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Publication History

Published: 08 July 2021

Accepted: 01 May 2021

Revised: 01 December 2019

Received: 01 December 2018

Published in TOCS Volume 38, Issue 1-2

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Cited By

Yin XSong EYang YWang YYang BLu JLi XLyu BWen RHe SShu YZhu S(2024)vSwitchLB: Stratified Load Balancing for vSwitch Efficiency in Data CentersProceedings of the 8th Asia-Pacific Workshop on Networking10.1145/3663408.3663422(95-101)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663408.3663422
Sherry J(2024)The I/O Driven Server: From SmartNICs to Data Movement ControllersACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review10.1145/3649171.364917453:3(9-17)Online publication date: 20-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649171.3649174
Ma ZLi TXu ZFonseca NZhu Z(2024)SFCache: Hybrid NF Synthesization in Runtime With Rule-Caching in Programmable SwitchesIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2024.339014021:4(4613-4624)Online publication date: 1-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNSM.2024.3390140
Wu ZZhang YTian FWu MZhai AZhang Z(2024)Interleaved Function Stream Execution Model for Cache-Aware High-Speed Stateful Packet Processing2024 IEEE 44th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS)10.1109/ICDCS60910.2024.00056(531-542)Online publication date: 23-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDCS60910.2024.00056
Adoga HPezaros D(2022)Network Function Virtualization and Service Function Chaining Frameworks: A Comprehensive Review of Requirements, Objectives, Implementations, and Open Research ChallengesFuture Internet10.3390/fi1402005914:2(59)Online publication date: 15-Feb-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/fi14020059
Lindner SParadzik GMenth M(2022)Alternative Best Effort (ABE) for Service Differentiation: Trading Loss Versus DelayIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2022.322155331:4(1642-1656)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TNET.2022.3221553

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