An Intel-VMware Perspective: Intelligent Queuing Technologies for Virtualization

VMDq Performance
Use Case Scenario
Intel and VMware have collaborated to develop and improve the
queuing technology in a virtualized environment. Intel provided its
VMDq technology for sorting data packets in the network silicon,
which lightens the burden for the hypervisor. VMware improved
the hypervisor switch layer, to not only direct the data to the
respective destined VM, but also target interrupts to respective
CPU cores and their respective destined VM. With this combined
queuing technology implementation in a virtualized environment,
the throughput more than doubled with a noticeable improvement
in CPU utilization. VMware NetQueue and VMDq combine to effi-
ciently share NICs, increase switching performance with hardware
acceleration, enable multiple VMs to be assigned to each port,
and allow customers to deploy more applications by reducing
CPU utilization.
In this specific use case scenario, the configuration included a
Quad-Core Intel
®
Xeon
®
processor-based server running Windows*
Server 2003 with four VMs and an Intel
®
82598 10 Gigabit
Ethernet Controller running on VMware ESX 3.5 Update 1. Using
the IxChariot* benchmarking application, receive-only throughput
without VMDq was 4.0 Gbps; with VMDq, the throughput more than
doubled to 9.2 Gbps. These readings were with the standard frame
size of 1500 bytes. With 9000-byte Jumbo Frames configured and
VMDq enabled, the throughput was 9.5 Gbps. VMware supports
VMDq on the Intel 82598 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller in
VMware ESX 3.5 Update 1.
Summary
More processing power provides opportunities for greater consoli-
dation in IT data centers; however, the impact to I/O cannot be
forgotten. VMDq offloads the data packet sorting overhead from
the hypervisor switch to hardware in the network silicon. Data
packet sorting in the network silicon, plus individual queues for
each VM, free more CPU cycles for application processing instead
of network I/O processing. In a benchmark study, the addition of
VMDq to Intel network silicon more than doubled the throughput
on a virtualized platform.
How to Get VMDq
This feature is supported in Intel
®
82575 Gigabit Ethernet
Controller and Intel 82598 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller,
and needs appropriate hypervisor enabling.
How to Get VMware NetQueue
VMware NetQueue is supported in version 3.5 and later of
VMware ESX.
Visit www.intel.com/network or www.vmware.com
for details.
1
Intel
®
Virtualization Technology requires a computer system with an enabled Intel
®
processor, BIOS, virtual machine monitor (VMM) and, for some uses, certain platform software enabled for
it. Functionality, performance or other benefits will vary depending on hardware and software configurations and may require a BIOS update. Software applications may not be compatible with
all operating systems. Please check with your application vendor.
Copyright © 2008, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
Intel, the Intel logo, Intel. Leap ahead., Intel. Leap ahead. logo, and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Printed in USA 0408/BY/OCG/HOP/500 Order Number: 319823-001US
Figure 4. VMDq significantly improves network I/O throughput.
4.0
9.2
9.5
Throughput
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
without
VMDq
with
VMDq
with VMDq on
Jumbo Frames