Technology Brief: Intel Virtualization Technology for Connectivity

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In a bare-metal Linux server, host processes can be assigned to these

dedicated network resources to provide traffic isolation and balanced

bandwidth allocation. Hardware-based QoS functionality in the Intel

Ethernet Controller keeps the network connections available for criti-

cal traffic during heavy traffic contention. These isolation and QoS

features are critical in 10GbE network deployments, but they can

also be used in Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) environments to help ensure

that management traffic has access to the host OS (Figure 4).

In a virtualized environment, the direct assignment of a VM to a virtual

adapter reduces the CPU overhead seen when using a software-based

network bridge or virtual switch by offloading network traffic manage-

ment to the Intel Ethernet Controller. New capabilities included in Linux

drivers allow the configuration of hardware bandwidth throttling and

monitoring capabilities, allowing fine tuning of QoS requirements

for each virtual adapter whether it is used by the OS or by a VM.

Figure 5 shows SR-IOV used in a combined bare-metal Linux and

virtualized environment.

Figure 4. Port Partitioning implemented in a bare-metal Linux* environment

Virtual Ethernet Bridge and Classiﬁer (L2 Switch)

Physical

Function

Dedicated Network

Function

Virtual

Function

Virtual

Function

Intel® Ethernet Controller

Linux* Kernel

PF Driver

PCI Express

VF Driver

Normal Process

Management (v200)

Normal Process

Back-up (v300)

I/O Stack

Normal Process

Virtual

Function

Virtual

Function

VF Driver

Virtual

Function

VF Driver

Normal Process

NFS (v400)

Normal Process

iSCSI (v500)

Normal Process

Web Server (v600)

SR-IOV Capable

Adapter/LOM

Kernel Process

Isolated with QoS

Multiple SR-IOV

Enabled Ethernet

Controllers

(Virtual Function)

Figure 5. Port Partitioning in a combined bare-metal Linux* and virtualized environment

Virtual Ethernet Bridge and Classiﬁer (L2 Switch)

Physical

Function

Dedicated

Network

Function

Intel® Ethernet Controller

Linux* Kernel

PF Driver

PCI Express

Normal Process

I/O Stack

Virtual

Function

Virtual

Function

VF Driver

Normal Process

Management (v200)

Normal Process

Back-up (v300)

Normal Process

Virtual

Function

Virtual

Function

Virtual

Function

Kernel Process

isolated with QoS

Multiple SR-IOV

Enabled Ethernet

Controllers

(Virtual Function)

Running Virtual Machines

Driver

VF Driver

Kernel Services Emulated Services

and VM Groups

Direct Services:

Appliances HPC, Cloud (SaaS)

Guest Memory

isolated

Hypervisor

by-passed

VM Network

isolated and

protected

Bridge (Virtual Software Switch)

KVM – Hypervisor

Bonding or Teaming

Intel® VT-d