Linux networking performance profiling towards network function virtualisation improvements

Abstract

The mobile networking industry has proposed the adoption of network function virtualisation in the various components of the core network, including the Gi-LAN which houses a large set of network functions. However, virtualisation introduces performance cost or additional processes that degrade the performance of the resultant network functions. In this work we consider the network stack for the most common virtualisation technology, Linux. We model the Linux networking stack based on the detailed analysis and monitoring of the performance of the various processes that occur in the network stack as the packets are forwarded to the network functions for processing. Based on the resultant model, we suggest and evaluate approaches for reducing the performance cost or avoiding unnecessary processes, in the context of Gi-LAN network functions.