[vswitchperf.git] / docs / testing / developer / requirements / ietf_draft / draft-vsperf-bmwg-vswitch-opnfv-02.xml

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<rfc category="info" docName="draft-vsperf-bmwg-vswitch-opnfv-02"
     ipr="trust200902">
  <front>
    <title abbrev="Benchmarking vSwitches">Benchmarking Virtual Switches in
    OPNFV</title>

    <author fullname="Maryam Tahhan" initials="M." surname="Tahhan">
      <organization>Intel</organization>

      <address>
        <postal>
          <street/>

          <city/>

          <region/>

          <code/>

          <country/>
        </postal>

        <phone/>

        <facsimile/>

        <email>maryam.tahhan@intel.com</email>

        <uri/>
      </address>
    </author>

    <author fullname="Billy O'Mahony" initials="B." surname="O'Mahony">
      <organization>Intel</organization>

      <address>
        <postal>
          <street/>

          <city/>

          <region/>

          <code/>

          <country/>
        </postal>

        <phone/>

        <facsimile/>

        <email>billy.o.mahony@intel.com</email>

        <uri/>
      </address>
    </author>

    <author fullname="Al Morton" initials="A." surname="Morton">
      <organization>AT&amp;T Labs</organization>

      <address>
        <postal>
          <street>200 Laurel Avenue South</street>

          <city>Middletown,</city>

          <region>NJ</region>

          <code>07748</code>

          <country>USA</country>
        </postal>

        <phone>+1 732 420 1571</phone>

        <facsimile>+1 732 368 1192</facsimile>

        <email>acmorton@att.com</email>

        <uri>http://home.comcast.net/~acmacm/</uri>
      </address>
    </author>

    <date day="21" month="March" year="2016"/>

    <abstract>
      <t>This memo describes the progress of the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV)
      project on virtual switch performance "VSWITCHPERF". This project
      intends to build on the current and completed work of the Benchmarking
      Methodology Working Group in IETF, by referencing existing literature.
      The Benchmarking Methodology Working Group has traditionally conducted
      laboratory characterization of dedicated physical implementations of
      internetworking functions. Therefore, this memo begins to describe the
      additional considerations when virtual switches are implemented in
      general-purpose hardware. The expanded tests and benchmarks are also
      influenced by the OPNFV mission to support virtualization of the "telco"
      infrastructure.</t>
    </abstract>

    <note title="Requirements Language">
      <t>The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
      "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
      document are to be interpreted as described in <xref
      target="RFC2119">RFC 2119</xref>.</t>

      <t/>
    </note>
  </front>

  <middle>
    <section title="Introduction">
      <t>Benchmarking Methodology Working Group (BMWG) has traditionally
      conducted laboratory characterization of dedicated physical
      implementations of internetworking functions. The Black-box Benchmarks
      of Throughput, Latency, Forwarding Rates and others have served our
      industry for many years. Now, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has
      the goal to transform how internetwork functions are implemented, and
      therefore has garnered much attention.</t>

      <t>This memo summarizes the progress of the Open Platform for NFV
      (OPNFV) project on virtual switch performance characterization,
      "VSWITCHPERF", through the Brahmaputra (second) release <xref
      target="BrahRel"/>. This project intends to build on the current and
      completed work of the Benchmarking Methodology Working Group in IETF, by
      referencing existing literature. For example, currently the most often
      referenced RFC is <xref target="RFC2544"/> (which depends on <xref
      target="RFC1242"/>) and foundation of the benchmarking work in OPNFV is
      common and strong.</t>

      <t>See
      https://wiki.opnfv.org/characterize_vswitch_performance_for_telco_nfv_use_cases
      for more background, and the OPNFV website for general information:
      https://www.opnfv.org/</t>

      <t>The authors note that OPNFV distinguishes itself from other open
      source compute and networking projects through its emphasis on existing
      "telco" services as opposed to cloud-computing. There are many ways in
      which telco requirements have different emphasis on performance
      dimensions when compared to cloud computing: support for and transfer of
      isochronous media streams is one example.</t>

      <t>Note also that the move to NFV Infrastructure has resulted in many
      new benchmarking initiatives across the industry. The authors are
      currently doing their best to maintain alignment with many other
      projects, and this Internet Draft is one part of the efforts. We
      acknowledge the early work in <xref
      target="I-D.huang-bmwg-virtual-network-performance"/>, and useful
      discussion with the authors.</t>
    </section>

    <section title="Scope">
      <t>The primary purpose and scope of the memo is to inform the industry
      of work-in-progress that builds on the body of extensive BMWG literature
      and experience, and describe the extensions needed for benchmarking
      virtual switches. Inital feedback indicates that many of these
      extensions may be applicable beyond the current scope (to hardware
      switches in the NFV Infrastructure and to virtual routers, for example).
      Additionally, this memo serves as a vehicle to include more detail and
      commentary from BMWG and other Open Source communities, under BMWG's
      chartered work to characterize the NFV Infrastructure (a virtual switch
      is an important aspect of that infrastructure).</t>
    </section>

    <section title="Benchmarking Considerations">
      <t>This section highlights some specific considerations (from <xref
      target="I-D.ietf-bmwg-virtual-net"/>)related to Benchmarks for virtual
      switches. The OPNFV project is sharing its present view on these areas,
      as they develop their specifications in the Level Test Design (LTD)
      document.</t>

      <section title="Comparison with Physical Network Functions">
        <t>To compare the performance of virtual designs and implementations
        with their physical counterparts, identical benchmarks are needed.
        BMWG has developed specifications for many network functions this memo
        re-uses existing benchmarks through references, and expands them
        during development of new methods. A key configuration aspect is the
        number of parallel cores required to achieve comparable performance
        with a given physical device, or whether some limit of scale was
        reached before the cores could achieve the comparable level.</t>

        <t>It's unlikely that the virtual switch will be the only application
        running on the SUT, so CPU utilization, Cache utilization, and Memory
        footprint should also be recorded for the virtual implementations of
        internetworking functions.</t>
      </section>

      <section title="Continued Emphasis on Black-Box Benchmarks">
        <t>External observations remain essential as the basis for Benchmarks.
        Internal observations with fixed specification and interpretation will
        be provided in parallel to assist the development of operations
        procedures when the technology is deployed.</t>
      </section>

      <section title="New Configuration Parameters">
        <t>A key consideration when conducting any sort of benchmark is trying
        to ensure the consistency and repeatability of test results. When
        benchmarking the performance of a vSwitch there are many factors that
        can affect the consistency of results, one key factor is matching the
        various hardware and software details of the SUT. This section lists
        some of the many new parameters which this project believes are
        critical to report in order to achieve repeatability.</t>

        <t>Hardware details including:</t>

        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Platform details</t>

            <t>Processor details</t>

            <t>Memory information (type and size)</t>

            <t>Number of enabled cores</t>

            <t>Number of cores used for the test</t>

            <t>Number of physical NICs, as well as their details
            (manufacturer, versions, type and the PCI slot they are plugged
            into)</t>

            <t>NIC interrupt configuration</t>

            <t>BIOS version, release date and any configurations that were
            modified</t>

            <t>CPU microcode level</t>

            <t>Memory DIMM configurations (quad rank performance may not be
            the same as dual rank) in size, freq and slot locations</t>

            <t>PCI configuration parameters (payload size, early ack
            option...)</t>

            <t>Power management at all levels (ACPI sleep states, processor
            package, OS...)</t>
          </list>Software details including:</t>

        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>OS parameters and behavior (text vs graphical no one typing at
            the console on one system)</t>

            <t>OS version (for host and VNF)</t>

            <t>Kernel version (for host and VNF)</t>

            <t>GRUB boot parameters (for host and VNF)</t>

            <t>Hypervisor details (Type and version)</t>

            <t>Selected vSwitch, version number or commit id used</t>

            <t>vSwitch launch command line if it has been parameterised</t>

            <t>Memory allocation to the vSwitch</t>

            <t>which NUMA node it is using, and how many memory channels</t>

            <t>DPDK or any other SW dependency version number or commit id
            used</t>

            <t>Memory allocation to a VM - if it's from Hugpages/elsewhere</t>

            <t>VM storage type: snapshot/independent persistent/independent
            non-persistent</t>

            <t>Number of VMs</t>

            <t>Number of Virtual NICs (vNICs), versions, type and driver</t>

            <t>Number of virtual CPUs and their core affinity on the host</t>

            <t>Number vNIC interrupt configuration</t>

            <t>Thread affinitization for the applications (including the
            vSwitch itself) on the host</t>

            <t>Details of Resource isolation, such as CPUs designated for
            Host/Kernel (isolcpu) and CPUs designated for specific processes
            (taskset). - Test duration. - Number of flows.</t>
          </list></t>

        <t>Test Traffic Information:<list style="symbols">
            <t>Traffic type - UDP, TCP, IMIX / Other</t>

            <t>Packet Sizes</t>

            <t>Deployment Scenario</t>
          </list></t>

        <t/>
      </section>

      <section title="Flow classification">
        <t>Virtual switches group packets into flows by processing and
        matching particular packet or frame header information, or by matching
        packets based on the input ports. Thus a flow can be thought of a
        sequence of packets that have the same set of header field values or
        have arrived on the same port. Performance results can vary based on
        the parameters the vSwitch uses to match for a flow. The recommended
        flow classification parameters for any vSwitch performance tests are:
        the input port, the source IP address, the destination IP address and
        the Ethernet protocol type field. It is essential to increase the flow
        timeout time on a vSwitch before conducting any performance tests that
        do not measure the flow setup time. Normally the first packet of a
        particular stream will install the flow in the virtual switch which
        adds an additional latency, subsequent packets of the same flow are
        not subject to this latency if the flow is already installed on the
        vSwitch.</t>
      </section>

      <section title="Benchmarks using Baselines with Resource Isolation">
        <t>This outline describes measurement of baseline with isolated
        resources at a high level, which is the intended approach at this
        time.</t>

        <t><list style="numbers">
            <t>Baselines: <list style="symbols">
                <t>Optional: Benchmark platform forwarding capability without
                a vswitch or VNF for at least 72 hours (serves as a means of
                platform validation and a means to obtain the base performance
                for the platform in terms of its maximum forwarding rate and
                latency). <figure>
                    <preamble>Benchmark platform forwarding
                    capability</preamble>

                    <artwork align="right"><![CDATA[                                                      __
 +--------------------------------------------------+   |
 |   +------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |                                          |   |   |
 |   |          Simple Forwarding App           |   |  Host
 |   |                                          |   |   |
 |   +------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |                 NIC                      |   |   |
 +---+------------------------------------------+---+ __|
            ^                           :
            |                           |
            :                           v
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>

                    <postamble/>
                  </figure></t>

                <t>Benchmark VNF forwarding capability with direct
                connectivity (vSwitch bypass, e.g., SR/IOV) for at least 72
                hours (serves as a means of VNF validation and a means to
                obtain the base performance for the VNF in terms of its
                maximum forwarding rate and latency). The metrics gathered
                from this test will serve as a key comparison point for
                vSwitch bypass technologies performance and vSwitch
                performance. <figure align="right">
                    <preamble>Benchmark VNF forwarding capability</preamble>

                    <artwork><![CDATA[                                                      __
 +--------------------------------------------------+   |
 |   +------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |                                          |   |   |
 |   |                 VNF                      |   |   |
 |   |                                          |   |   |
 |   +------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |          Passthrough/SR-IOV              |   |  Host
 |   +------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |                 NIC                      |   |   |
 +---+------------------------------------------+---+ __|
            ^                           :
            |                           |
            :                           v
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>

                    <postamble/>
                  </figure></t>

                <t>Benchmarking with isolated resources alone, with other
                resources (both HW&amp;SW) disabled Example, vSw and VM are
                SUT</t>

                <t>Benchmarking with isolated resources alone, leaving some
                resources unused</t>

                <t>Benchmark with isolated resources and all resources
                occupied</t>
              </list></t>

            <t>Next Steps<list style="symbols">
                <t>Limited sharing</t>

                <t>Production scenarios</t>

                <t>Stressful scenarios</t>
              </list></t>
          </list></t>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section title="VSWITCHPERF Specification Summary">
      <t>The overall specification in preparation is referred to as a Level
      Test Design (LTD) document, which will contain a suite of performance
      tests. The base performance tests in the LTD are based on the
      pre-existing specifications developed by BMWG to test the performance of
      physical switches. These specifications include:</t>

      <t><list style="symbols">
          <t><xref target="RFC2544"/> Benchmarking Methodology for Network
          Interconnect Devices</t>

          <t><xref target="RFC2889"/> Benchmarking Methodology for LAN
          Switching</t>

          <t><xref target="RFC6201"/> Device Reset Characterization</t>

          <t><xref target="RFC5481"/> Packet Delay Variation Applicability
          Statement</t>
        </list></t>

      <t>Some of the above/newer RFCs are being applied in benchmarking for
      the first time, and represent a development challenge for test equipment
      developers. Fortunately, many members of the testing system community
      have engaged on the VSPERF project, including an open source test
      system.</t>

      <t>In addition to this, the LTD also re-uses the terminology defined
      by:</t>

      <t><list style="symbols">
          <t><xref target="RFC2285"/> Benchmarking Terminology for LAN
          Switching Devices</t>

          <t><xref target="RFC5481"/> Packet Delay Variation Applicability
          Statement</t>
        </list></t>

      <t/>

      <t>Specifications to be included in future updates of the LTD
      include:<list style="symbols">
          <t><xref target="RFC3918"/> Methodology for IP Multicast
          Benchmarking</t>

          <t><xref target="RFC4737"/> Packet Reordering Metrics</t>
        </list></t>

      <t>As one might expect, the most fundamental internetworking
      characteristics of Throughput and Latency remain important when the
      switch is virtualized, and these benchmarks figure prominently in the
      specification.</t>

      <t>When considering characteristics important to "telco" network
      functions, we must begin to consider additional performance metrics. In
      this case, the project specifications have referenced metrics from the
      IETF IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) literature. This means that the <xref
      target="RFC2544"/> test of Latency is replaced by measurement of a
      metric derived from IPPM's <xref target="RFC2679"/>, where a set of
      statistical summaries will be provided (mean, max, min, etc.). Further
      metrics planned to be benchmarked include packet delay variation as
      defined by <xref target="RFC5481"/> , reordering, burst behaviour, DUT
      availability, DUT capacity and packet loss in long term testing at
      Throughput level, where some low-level of background loss may be present
      and characterized.</t>

      <t>Tests have been (or will be) designed to collect the metrics
      below:</t>

      <t><list style="symbols">
          <t>Throughput Tests to measure the maximum forwarding rate (in
          frames per second or fps) and bit rate (in Mbps) for a constant load
          (as defined by <xref target="RFC1242"/>) without traffic loss.</t>

          <t>Packet and Frame Delay Distribution Tests to measure average, min
          and max packet and frame delay for constant loads.</t>

          <t>Packet Delay Tests to understand latency distribution for
          different packet sizes and over an extended test run to uncover
          outliers.</t>

          <t>Scalability Tests to understand how the virtual switch performs
          as the number of flows, active ports, complexity of the forwarding
          logic&rsquo;s configuration&hellip; it has to deal with
          increases.</t>

          <t>Stream Performance Tests (TCP, UDP) to measure bulk data transfer
          performance, i.e. how fast systems can send and receive data through
          the switch.</t>

          <t>Control Path and Datapath Coupling Tests, to understand how
          closely coupled the datapath and the control path are as well as the
          effect of this coupling on the performance of the DUT (example:
          delay of the initial packet of a flow).</t>

          <t>CPU and Memory Consumption Tests to understand the virtual
          switch&rsquo;s footprint on the system, usually conducted as
          auxiliary measurements with benchmarks above. They include: CPU
          utilization, Cache utilization and Memory footprint.</t>

          <t>The so-called "Soak" tests, where the selected test is conducted
          over a long period of time (with an ideal duration of 24 hours, and
          at least 6 hours). The purpose of soak tests is to capture transient
          changes in performance which may occur due to infrequent processes
          or the low probability coincidence of two or more processes. The
          performance must be evaluated periodically during continuous
          testing, and this results in use of <xref target="RFC2889"/> Frame
          Rate metrics instead of <xref target="RFC2544"/> Throughput (which
          requires stopping traffic to allow time for all traffic to exit
          internal queues).</t>
        </list></t>

      <t>Future/planned test specs include:<list style="symbols">
          <t>Request/Response Performance Tests (TCP, UDP) which measure the
          transaction rate through the switch.</t>

          <t>Noisy Neighbour Tests, to understand the effects of resource
          sharing on the performance of a virtual switch.</t>

          <t>Tests derived from examination of ETSI NFV Draft GS IFA003
          requirements <xref target="IFA003"/> on characterization of
          acceleration technologies applied to vswitches.</t>
        </list>The flexibility of deployment of a virtual switch within a
      network means that the BMWG IETF existing literature needs to be used to
      characterize the performance of a switch in various deployment
      scenarios. The deployment scenarios under consideration include:</t>

      <t><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to physical
          port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                      __
 +--------------------------------------------------+   |
 |              +--------------------+              |   |
 |              |                    |              |   |
 |              |                    v              |   |  Host
 |   +--------------+            +--------------+   |   |
 |   |   phy port   |  vSwitch   |   phy port   |   |   |
 +---+--------------+------------+--------------+---+ __|
            ^                           :
            |                           |
            :                           v
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure></t>

      <t><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to VNF to virtual switch
          to physical port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                      __
 +---------------------------------------------------+   |
 |                                                   |   |
 |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |                 Application               |   |   |
 |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |       ^                                  :        |   |
 |       |                                  |        |   |  Guest
 |       :                                  v        |   |
 |   +---------------+           +---------------+   |   |
 |   | logical port 0|           | logical port 1|   |   |
 +---+---------------+-----------+---------------+---+ __|
         ^                                  :
         |                                  |
         :                                  v         __
 +---+---------------+----------+---------------+---+   |
 |   | logical port 0|          | logical port 1|   |   |
 |   +---------------+          +---------------+   |   |
 |       ^                                  :       |   |
 |       |                                  |       |   |  Host
 |       :                                  v       |   |
 |   +--------------+            +--------------+   |   |
 |   |   phy port   |  vSwitch   |   phy port   |   |   |
 +---+--------------+------------+--------------+---+ __|
            ^                           :
            |                           |
            :                           v
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to VNF to virtual switch
          to VNF to virtual switch to physical port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                   __
 +----------------------+  +----------------------+  |
 |   Guest 1            |  |   Guest 2            |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   |  Application  |  |  |   |  Application  |  |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |       ^       |      |  |       ^       |      |  |
 |       |       v      |  |       |       v      |  |  Guests
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   | logical ports |  |  |   | logical ports |  |  |
 |   |   0       1   |  |  |   |   0       1   |  |  |
 +---+---------------+--+  +---+---------------+--+__|
         ^       :                 ^       :
         |       |                 |       |
         :       v                 :       v       _
 +---+---------------+---------+---------------+--+ |
 |   |   0       1   |         |   3       4   |  | |
 |   | logical ports |         | logical ports |  | |
 |   +---------------+         +---------------+  | |
 |       ^       |                 ^       |      | |  Host
 |       |       |-----------------|       v      | |
 |   +--------------+          +--------------+   | |
 |   |   phy ports  | vSwitch  |   phy ports  |   | |
 +---+--------------+----------+--------------+---+_|
         ^                                 :
         |                                 |
         :                                 v
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble>Physical port to virtual switch to VNF</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                       __
 +---------------------------------------------------+   |
 |                                                   |   |
 |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |                 Application               |   |   |
 |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |       ^                                           |   |
 |       |                                           |   |  Guest
 |       :                                           |   |
 |   +---------------+                               |   |
 |   | logical port 0|                               |   |
 +---+---------------+-------------------------------+ __|
         ^
         |
         :                                            __
 +---+---------------+------------------------------+   |
 |   | logical port 0|                              |   |
 |   +---------------+                              |   |
 |       ^                                          |   |
 |       |                                          |   |  Host
 |       :                                          |   |
 |   +--------------+                               |   |
 |   |   phy port   |  vSwitch                      |   |
 +---+--------------+------------ -------------- ---+ __|
            ^
            |
            :
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble>VNF to virtual switch to physical port</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                       __
 +---------------------------------------------------+   |
 |                                                   |   |
 |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |   |                 Application               |   |   |
 |   +-------------------------------------------+   |   |
 |                                          :        |   |
 |                                          |        |   |  Guest
 |                                          v        |   |
 |                               +---------------+   |   |
 |                               | logical port  |   |   |
 +-------------------------------+---------------+---+ __|
                                            :
                                            |
                                            v         __
 +------------------------------+---------------+---+   |
 |                              | logical port  |   |   |
 |                              +---------------+   |   |
 |                                          :       |   |
 |                                          |       |   |  Host
 |                                          v       |   |
 |                               +--------------+   |   |
 |                     vSwitch   |   phy port   |   |   |
 +-------------------------------+--------------+---+ __|
                                        :
                                        |
                                        v
 +--------------------------------------------------+
 |                                                  |
 |                traffic generator                 |
 |                                                  |
 +--------------------------------------------------+]]></artwork>
        </figure><figure>
          <preamble>VNF to virtual switch to VNF</preamble>

          <artwork><![CDATA[                                                   __
 +----------------------+  +----------------------+  |
 |   Guest 1            |  |   Guest 2            |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   |  Application  |  |  |   |  Application  |  |  |
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |              |       |  |       ^              |  |
 |              v       |  |       |              |  |  Guests
 |   +---------------+  |  |   +---------------+  |  |
 |   | logical ports |  |  |   | logical ports |  |  |
 |   |           0   |  |  |   |   0           |  |  |
 +---+---------------+--+  +---+---------------+--+__|
                 :                 ^
                 |                 |
                 v                 :               _
 +---+---------------+---------+---------------+--+ |
 |   |           1   |         |   1           |  | |
 |   | logical ports |         | logical ports |  | |
 |   +---------------+         +---------------+  | |
 |               |                 ^              | |  Host
 |               L-----------------+              | |
 |                                                | |
 |                    vSwitch                     | |
 +------------------------------------------------+_|]]></artwork>
        </figure></t>

      <t>A set of Deployment Scenario figures is available on the VSPERF Test
      Methodology Wiki page <xref target="TestTopo"/>.</t>
    </section>

    <section title="3x3 Matrix Coverage">
      <t>This section organizes the many existing test specifications into the
      "3x3" matrix (introduced in <xref target="I-D.ietf-bmwg-virtual-net"/>).
      Because the LTD specification ID names are quite long, this section is
      organized into lists for each occupied cell of the matrix (not all are
      occupied, also the matrix has grown to 3x4 to accommodate scale metrics
      when displaying the coverage of many metrics/benchmarks). The current
      version of the LTD specification is available <xref target="LTD"/>.</t>

      <t>The tests listed below assess the activation of paths in the data
      plane, rather than the control plane.</t>

      <t>A complete list of tests with short summaries is available on the
      VSPERF "LTD Test Spec Overview" Wiki page <xref target="LTDoverV"/>.</t>

      <section title="Speed of Activation">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Activation.RFC2889.AddressLearningRate</t>

            <t>PacketLatency.InitialPacketProcessingLatency</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Accuracy of Activation section">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>CPDP.Coupling.Flow.Addition</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Reliability of Activation">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Throughput.RFC2544.SystemRecoveryTime</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2544.ResetTime</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Scale of Activation">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Activation.RFC2889.AddressCachingCapacity</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Speed of Operation">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Throughput.RFC2544.PacketLossRate</t>

            <t>CPU.RFC2544.0PacketLoss</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2544.PacketLossRateFrameModification</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2544.BackToBackFrames</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2889.MaxForwardingRate</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2889.ForwardPressure</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2889.BroadcastFrameForwarding</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Accuracy of Operation">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Throughput.RFC2889.ErrorFramesFiltering</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2544.Profile</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Reliability of Operation">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Throughput.RFC2889.Soak</t>

            <t>Throughput.RFC2889.SoakFrameModification</t>

            <t>PacketDelayVariation.RFC3393.Soak</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Scalability of Operation">
        <t><list style="symbols">
            <t>Scalability.RFC2544.0PacketLoss</t>

            <t>MemoryBandwidth.RFC2544.0PacketLoss.Scalability</t>
          </list></t>
      </section>

      <section title="Summary">
        <t><figure>
            <artwork><![CDATA[|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|               |             |            |               |             |
|               |   SPEED     |  ACCURACY  |  RELIABILITY  |    SCALE    |
|               |             |            |               |             |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|               |             |            |               |             |
|  Activation   |      X      |     X      |       X       |      X      |
|               |             |            |               |             |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|               |             |            |               |             |
|  Operation    |      X      |      X     |       X       |      X      |
|               |             |            |               |             |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|               |             |            |               |             |
| De-activation |             |            |               |             |
|               |             |            |               |             |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|]]></artwork>
          </figure></t>
      </section>
    </section>

    <section title="Security Considerations">
      <t>Benchmarking activities as described in this memo are limited to
      technology characterization of a Device Under Test/System Under Test
      (DUT/SUT) using controlled stimuli in a laboratory environment, with
      dedicated address space and the constraints specified in the sections
      above.</t>

      <t>The benchmarking network topology will be an independent test setup
      and MUST NOT be connected to devices that may forward the test traffic
      into a production network, or misroute traffic to the test management
      network.</t>

      <t>Further, benchmarking is performed on a "black-box" basis, relying
      solely on measurements observable external to the DUT/SUT.</t>

      <t>Special capabilities SHOULD NOT exist in the DUT/SUT specifically for
      benchmarking purposes. Any implications for network security arising
      from the DUT/SUT SHOULD be identical in the lab and in production
      networks.</t>
    </section>

    <section anchor="IANA" title="IANA Considerations">
      <t>No IANA Action is requested at this time.</t>
    </section>

    <section title="Acknowledgements">
      <t>The authors appreciate and acknowledge comments from Scott Bradner,
      Marius Georgescu, Ramki Krishnan, Doug Montgomery, Martin Klozik,
      Christian Trautman, and others for their reviews.</t>
    </section>
  </middle>

  <back>
    <references title="Normative References">
      <?rfc ?>

      <?rfc include="reference.RFC.2119"?>

      <?rfc ?>

      <?rfc include="reference.RFC.2330"?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2544'?>

      <?rfc include="reference.RFC.2679"?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2680'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.3393'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.3432'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2681'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.5905'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.4689'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.4737'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.5357'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2889'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.3918'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.6201'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.2285'?>

      <reference anchor="NFV.PER001">
        <front>
          <title>Network Function Virtualization: Performance and Portability
          Best Practices</title>

          <author fullname="ETSI NFV" initials="" surname="">
            <organization/>
          </author>

          <date month="June" year="2014"/>
        </front>

        <seriesInfo name="Group Specification"
                    value="ETSI GS NFV-PER 001 V1.1.1 (2014-06)"/>

        <format type="PDF"/>
      </reference>
    </references>

    <references title="Informative References">
      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.1242'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.5481'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.6049'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.6248'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.RFC.6390'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.I-D.ietf-bmwg-virtual-net'?>

      <?rfc include='reference.I-D.huang-bmwg-virtual-network-performance'?>

      <reference anchor="TestTopo">
        <front>
          <title>Test Topologies
          https://wiki.opnfv.org/vsperf/test_methodology</title>

          <author>
            <organization/>
          </author>

          <date/>
        </front>
      </reference>

      <reference anchor="LTDoverV">
        <front>
          <title>LTD Test Spec Overview
          https://wiki.opnfv.org/wiki/vswitchperf_test_spec_review</title>

          <author>
            <organization/>
          </author>

          <date/>
        </front>
      </reference>

      <reference anchor="LTD">
        <front>
          <title>LTD Test Specification
          http://artifacts.opnfv.org/vswitchperf/docs/requirements/index.html</title>

          <author>
            <organization/>
          </author>

          <date/>
        </front>
      </reference>

      <reference anchor="BrahRel">
        <front>
          <title>Brahmaputra, Second OPNFV Release
          https://www.opnfv.org/brahmaputra</title>

          <author>
            <organization/>
          </author>

          <date/>
        </front>
      </reference>

      <reference anchor="IFA003">
        <front>
          <title>https://docbox.etsi.org/ISG/NFV/Open/Drafts/IFA003_Acceleration_-_vSwitch_Spec/</title>

          <author>
            <organization/>
          </author>

          <date/>
        </front>
      </reference>
    </references>
  </back>
</rfc>