The Intel® Developer Zone Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) DevLab was designed to both improve platform knowledge and deepen the interest of new and current networking virtualization and DPDK developers. It was a full-day event at the Intel Santa Clara Campus, with hosted presentations, demos, and hands-on training for the developers in attendance.
There were ten presentations by experts from Intel and Berkeley, two hands-on sessions, three in-class demos, and four independent software vendor demos so participants could learn from architects and experts from industry, academia, and Intel.
This report contains videos and PowerPoint slides that capture the day’s presentations. You can use them to learn, review, and get involved in the DevLab. The two hands-on sessions at the DevLab are not posted here because the reader will not have access to the hardware set up at the lab, and hence would be of limited value. Updates from Intel® Network Builders University and DPDK open source community are included so you can refer to these resources outside of Intel Developer Zone for your learning.
Table of Contents
Software Defined Infrastructure/Network Function Virtualization/ONP Ingredients
DPDK Overview and Core APIs
DPDK API and Virtual Infrastructure
DPDK and Virtio
Open vSwitch* with DPDK: Architecture and Performance
BESS ̶ A Virtual Switch Tailored for NFV
Intel® VTune™ and Performance Optimizations
DPDK Performance Benchmarking
DPDK Open Source Community Update
Intel Network Builders University
Software Defined Infrastructure/Network Function Virtualization/ONP Ingredients
This presentation starts with an overview of Software Defined infrastructure (SDI) and describes how Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) come together to achieve a flexible and scalable independent software framework: OpenStack*. Intel® Open Network Platform (Intel® ONP), which is based on Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), is introduced here. OPNFV aims to provide a reference architecture for NFV and SDN deployments in the real world. Presented by Sujata Tibrewala and Ashok Emani.
DPDK Overview and Core APIs
This presentation centers on DPDK design and how it is used. In addition to an overview of DPDK, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Vector Packet Processing (VPP)/Fast Data I/O (FD.io), and the new Transport Layer Development Kit (TLDK) used in current deployments are discussed. Further, the presentation shows how DPDK is used within Virtual Network Function (VNF)/NFV systems to accelerate these cloud applications, including how DPDK is used to improve the performance of Cisco’s routing software. Presented by Keith Wiles.
DPDK API and Virtual Infrastructure
This presentation showcases DPDK API Virtualization Support and how it opens up multiple network interfaces that can be used to deliver packets from the physical Network Interface Card (NIC) to a VM/VNF in the NFV setup. In addition, the presentation lists various virtual devices with available Poll Mode Drivers in DPDK API, and delivers insights into how toproperly build your NFVi from the beginning. Presented by Rashmin Patel.
DPDK and Virtio
The presentation starts with an overview of Virtio and how it is used with DPDK and in a VNF/NFV cloud. A simple example of how to use Virtio APIs follows, and the presentation finishes with the design of VNF/NFV software with respect to how these layers combine into a cloud product. Presented by Keith Wiles.
Open vSwitch with DPDK: Architecture and Performance
This presentation covers Open vSwitch (OVS), a production-quality, multilayer virtual switch that supports SDN control semantics via the Open Flow protocol and its OVSDB management interface. Performance is not sufficient to support Telco NFV use cases, so the presentation further shows how DPDK is integrated into native OVS to boost performance. The presentation specifically covers OVS multilevel table support, vhost multi-queue, and related features used with DPDK to achieve maximum performance. The presentation ends with benchmark results on OVS for the most common use cases. Presented by Irene Liew.
BESS - A Virtual Switch Tailored for NFV
This presentation discusses Berkeley Extensible Software Switch (BESS), an extensible platform for rapid development of software switches. BESS allows you to implement a fully customizable packet processing data path. In this session, we present some technical details of BESS and then demonstrate how to implement a custom virtual switch in just 30 minutes. Presented by Joshua Reich and Sangjin Han.
Intel® VTune™ and Performance Optimizations
This presentation is a tutorial about performance optimization best practices and includes a demo with a link to a do-it-yourself cookbook called “Profiling DPDK Code with Intel® VTune™ Amplifier.” Role-playing sessions are used, with the audience acting as various building blocks of a CPU pipeline. It emphasizes the thought process for analysis of Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) affinity, followed by a discussion of microarchitecture optimizations with VTune. The presentation concludes with information about how viewers can replicate the demo shown with VTune profiling DPDK micro benchmarks and identify hotspots in their own applications. Presented by Muthurajan Jayakumar (M Jay).
DPDK Performance Benchmarking
This presentation describes the standard process for performing high-throughput networking performance benchmarking tests using the DPDK Layer 3 forwarding (l3fwd) sample application workload. This includes hardware and software configurations for performance optimization and tuning. The session is also a tutorial on reading DPDK performance reports produced by the Intel® NPG PMA team posted on http://cat.intel.com (Note: NDA required) and for performing some essential platform performance tuning. Presented by Georgii Tkachuk.
DPDK Open Source Community Update
This presentation describes the history of the DPDK open source community. It describes the increasing level of multi-architecture support now available in DPDK, including information on the number of contributions and main contributors to DPDK releases. It further explains how new members can contribute and provides links to more information. Presented by Tim O’Driscoll.
Intel Network Builders University
This presentation gives an overview of the Intel Network Builders University. Network Builders University is an NFV/SDN Training Program for Network Builders Partners and end users. Presented by George Ranallo.
For More Information
For more information about topics in this article visit the Intel® Developer Zone's Networking site and Intel® Network Builders University. If you're in the San Francisco Bay area, check out the Out Of The Box Network Developers Meetup.