2023-03-29 Agenda and Minutes

Sridhar has started setup in the new testbed.  Seems stable and going well.  VPN is good stability. Need a few more days to get going (all the basic stuff needs to be setup.)   Completing install of PROX and Trex.

eBPF support varies from OS to OS:  Different form Ubuntu 20.04 to 20.04 - strange - trying to create superset of library of eBPF support and deployment.  Needed kernel rebuild in one system, but not in another - so need to re-build to to be safe or check in the kernel.  All the details must be known so that the automation works.

Sawyer Bergeron says that the booking has been extended to late May, 2023.

08 Mar 2023 ACTION: Need to determine the STABILITY of the current booking, which expired but still works. Mail to UNH.

Notes on: 08 Feb 2023 

Can automate the IP addrs assignments for all the traffic links - How?   Can Config.YAML really work?  or is Ansible better?

Note from 22 Feb 2023 First step is to verify that a single L2 forwarder will work (Cillium's ability to use DPDK is in question)

Notes on 22 Feb 2023

eBPF Acceleration Model Figure is not accurate - trying to cover too many scenarios. Need two figures, since eBPF can also be in user space.

Statement that Cillium with DPDK forwarding app, and DPDK traffic gen testing is not possible. Cannot connect the parts in teh testbed.

Comment about last slide: it's mostly the Rx queue that contributes to performance,

Sridhar will send a version of the word file with his text corrections included.

08 Feb 2023 Invite Minh-Ngoc Tran to a future meeting, to check if our comments were adopted.

11 Jan 2023 Review with Minh-Ngoc Tran 

Draft: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-dcn-bmwg-containerized-infra-09.html

Slides: Considerations for Benchmarking Network Performance in Containerized Infrastructure  

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dcn-bmwg-containerized-infra/

yangun@dcn.ssu.ac.kr  Sirdhar will contact.

mipearlska1307@dcn.ssu.ac.kr presented at IETF-115

Comments: ETSI TST009 scenarios were preliminary and not tested.  The draft extends these scenarios with Pod inside VM.

Sridhar Rao Tested many similar scenarios - performance difference among with VM and without VM is negligible. Not really necessary to test.  Minh needs to check this with colleagues  Sridhar will share our teams results - part of Daniele's work.  The reason people run VMs is for security reasons and resource isolation -WHEN Containers did not supply.

Parameters section: Cannot use a CNI independent of the Networking model (SRIOV or user space determines this)

Some Networking models listed are not relevant when performance is the priority. Are these even applicable when performance matters? maybe not.  For example, their networking model includes Kernel space switching will perform poorly. Minh replies that ALL the Models are included.  Need to categorize into good/bad perf.  Minh agrees.

Performance Impacts:  Major example is Number of Cores, which is not included in the Draft.  Please add this.  Minh agrees.

Section 3 clarify the use of Containers and Pods - used interchangeably now. need to clarify

Section 3 Some generalizations about CNI are not correct - Some CNI do not use user namespace

Figure 1 What is Container Engine?  is it Container Run-time. 

4.2 Some duplication on Container Network Plugin? Agree.  Can use different CNI with same network Model - no difference. The SR-IOV networking model would make a big difference with other models, but CNI not so much.  The Vswitch and the Networking model are closely tied together (Models with VPP are not possible with OVS, for example).

Section 4.3 CNI does not create it's own switch functions   Also, which of 5 networking models does Calico fall. Figures in Section 4.3.  Normal Calico does not use eBPF  Calico should fall in section 4.3.1 figure, but needs to be fixed. (remove "VSwitch")  and add Kernel routing tables in the user space vswitch block.

There was a Cillium eBPF scenario that was in the slides - this is not possible with the traffic gen and DPDK.

Tim Gresham asks for resolution on this.

If we can get it, do we want it?  No good without license!  So, is a license still valid or available for update?

THEN - need to ship and install in UNH, get working there - IXIA help  to do this.

04 May 2022 

Trevor Cooper says connected and powered on, but we still might have a license issue. Need Pierre's help.

11 May 2022 this activity seems to have stalled ...

Tasks 1, 3, and 4have been completed/merged. Not doing 2.  DONE