As SDN-based networking infrastructure continues to evolve, an increasing number of traditional network functions are deployed over virtualized networks. Similar to fixed function switching networks, traffic monitoring in a Software Defined Network is critical in order to ensure the security and performance of the underlying infrastructure. In the context of virtualized networks, deployment of a virtualized TAP service has been reported as an effective VNF that can provide the same monitoring capabilities as a physical TAP. For most virtual switch implementations, e.g., OvS, network device virtualization is based upon a para-virtualization technology, i.e., VIRTIO. One of the primary use cases for port mirroring is inter-VM communication, i.e., packet streams that exist between virtual network devices, which remains prohibitively expensive for TAP devices. Specifically, it has been observed that virtual TAPs can contribute up to 70% performance degradation to the source VNF(s). With reference to prior work, we previously presented a feasibility study that included a novel approach towards the reduction of port-mirroring overhead. In this paper we present our latest contributions, in which we integrate our design into OvS and develop a VLAN based filtering scheme to pass traffic from a source device to a monitoring device. In this case, both devices may reside either within the same or different switch domains. Furthermore, we present an improvement over RSPAN and discuss its feasibility in delivering mirrored traffic across switch domains, which, in contrast to ERSPAN, does not require an L3 overlay network.

As network bandwidth consumption continues to grow exponentially, real-time traffic data analysis becomes increasingly challenging and expensive. In many cases, network traffic monitoring can only be achieved via hardware Test Access Point (TAP) devices. Due to the intrusiveness and inflexibility of deploying hardware devices, this approach is intractable within an SDN environment where dynamic network resource allocation is key to the orchestration of network services. This paper presents a novel mirror tunnel design to achieve near hardware level TAP-as-a-Service (TaaS) performance through network device mirror offloading, while retaining resource reconfigurability. Mirror tunneling is a hybrid approach whereby a software TAP transports traffic from a source device to a mirror tunnel device. Traffic is then mirrored in place and sent to the destination device. The combination of a software TAP with the mirroring capabilities of the underlying hardware empowers system administrators to create a dynamically reconfigurable multi-path traffic mirroring system. As demonstrated in the benchmark results, this approach is efficient in terms of network bandwidth consumption and computational resources. In addition, this methodology is designed to mirror traffic in high-throughput environments with minimal to no impact on the source Virtual Network Functions (VNFs).

As SDN-based networking infrastructure continues to evolve, an increasing number of traditional network functions are deployed over virtualized network. Like traditional networks, traffic monitoring in a Software Defined Network is critical in order to ensure security and performance of the underlying infrastructure. In the context of virtualized networks, deployment of a virtualized TAP service has been reported as an effective VNF that can provide the same monitoring capabilities as a physical TAP. Unfortunately, over a para-virtualization environment, e.g. OVS, where inter-VM communication is expensive it has been observed that virtual TAPs can contribute up to 70% performance degradation. In this paper, we present a hybrid approach that allows network administrators to mirror VIRTIO port traffic to another VF (SR-IOV) via NIC hardware offloading. As a result, the mirrored traffic can be viewed through a monitoring VNF in a separate VM. Through this approach, the throughput overhead can be reduced by as much as 50%.

Over the last decade, addressing quality of service (QoS) in multi-core server platforms has been growing research topic. QoS techniques have been proposed to address the shared resource contention between co-running applications or virtual machines in servers and thereby provide better isolation, performance determinism and potentially improve overall throughput. One of the most important shared resources is cache space. Most proposals for addressing shared cache contention are based on simulations and analysis and no commercial platforms were available that integrated such techniques and provided a practical solution. In this paper, we will present the first set of shared cache QoS techniques designed and implemented in state-of-the-art commercial servers (the Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 v3 product family). We will describe two key technologies: (i) Cache Monitoring Technology (CMT) to enable monitoring of shared cache usage by different applications and (ii) Cache Allocation Technology (CAT) which enables redistribution of shared cache space between applications to address contention. This is the first paper to describing these techniques as they moved from concept to reality, starting from early research to product implementation. We will also present case studies highlighting the value of these techniques using example scenarios of multi-programmed workloads, virtualized platforms in datacenters and communications platforms. Finally, we will describe initial software infrastructure and enabling for industry practitioners and researchers to take advantage of these technologies for their QoS needs.