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-Overview
-========
-
-Tested Physical Topologies
---------------------------
-
-CSIT VPP performance tests are executed on physical baremetal servers hosted by LF
-FD.io project. Testbed physical topology is shown in the figure below.
-
-::
-
- +------------------------+ +------------------------+
- | | | |
- | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ |
- | | | | | | | |
- | | <-----------------> | |
- | | DUT1 | | | | DUT2 | |
- | +--^---------------+ | | +---------------^--+ |
- | | | | | |
- | | SUT1 | | SUT2 | |
- +------------------------+ +------------------^-----+
- | |
- | |
- | +-----------+ |
- | | | |
- +------------------> TG <------------------+
- | |
- +-----------+
-
-SUT1 and SUT2 are two System Under Test servers (Cisco UCS C240, each with two
-Intel XEON CPUs), TG is a Traffic Generator (TG, another Cisco UCS C240, with
-two Intel XEON CPUs). SUTs run VPP SW application in Linux user-mode as a
-Device Under Test (DUT). TG runs TRex SW application as a packet Traffic
-Generator. Physical connectivity between SUTs and to TG is provided using
-different NIC models that need to be tested for performance. Currently
-installed and tested NIC models include:
-
-#. 2port10GE X520-DA2 Intel.
-#. 2port10GE X710 Intel.
-#. 2port10GE VIC1227 Cisco.
-#. 2port40GE VIC1385 Cisco.
-#. 2port40GE XL710 Intel.
-
-From SUT and DUT perspective, all performance tests involve forwarding packets
-between two physical Ethernet ports (10GE or 40GE). Due to the number of
-listed NIC models tested and available PCI slot capacity in SUT servers, in
-all of the above cases both physical ports are located on the same NIC. In
-some test cases this results in measured packet throughput being limited not
-by VPP DUT but by either the physical interface or the NIC capacity.
-
-Going forward CSIT project will be looking to add more hardware into FD.io
-performance labs to address larger scale multi-interface and multi-NIC
-performance testing scenarios.
-
-For test cases that require DUT (VPP) to communicate with VM(s) over vhost-user
-interfaces, N of VM instances are created on SUT1 and SUT2. For N=1 DUT (VPP) forwards packets between vhostuser and physical interfaces. For N>1 DUT (VPP) a logical service chain forwarding topology is created on DUT (VPP) by applying L2 or IPv4/IPv6 configuration depending on the test suite.
-DUT (VPP) test topology with N VM instances
-is shown in the figure below including applicable packet flow thru the DUTs and VMs
-(marked in the figure with ``***``).
-
-::
-
- +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
- | +---------+ +---------+ | | +---------+ +---------+ |
- | | VM[1] | | VM[N] | | | | VM[1] | | VM[N] | |
- | | ***** | | ***** | | | | ***** | | ***** | |
- | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ | | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ |
- | *| |* *| |* | | *| |* *| |* |
- | +--v---v-------v---v--+ | | +--v---v-------v---v--+ |
- | | * * * * |*|***********|*| * * * * | |
- | | * ********* ***<-|-----------|->*** ********* * | |
- | | * DUT1 | | | | DUT2 * | |
- | +--^------------------+ | | +------------------^--+ |
- | *| | | |* |
- | *| SUT1 | | SUT2 |* |
- +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
- *| |*
- *| |*
- *| +-----------+ |*
- *| | | |*
- *+--------------------> TG <--------------------+*
- **********************| |**********************
- +-----------+
-
-For VM tests, packets are switched by DUT (VPP) multiple times: twice for a single VM, three times for two VMs, N+1 times for N VMs.
-Hence the external
-throughput rates measured by TG and listed in this report must be multiplied
-by (N+1) to represent the actual DUT aggregate packet forwarding rate.
-
-CSIT |release|
-
-Note that reported VPP performance results are specific to the SUTs tested.
-Current LF FD.io SUTs are based on Intel XEON E5-2699v3 2.3GHz CPUs. SUTs with
-other CPUs are likely to yield different results. A good rule of thumb, that
-can be applied to estimate VPP packet thoughput for Phy-to-Phy (NIC-to-NIC,
-PCI-to-PCI) topology, is to expect the forwarding performance to be
-proportional to CPU core frequency, assuming CPU is the only limiting factor
-and all other SUT parameters equivalent to FD.io CSIT environment. The same rule of
-thumb can be also applied for Phy-to-VM-to-Phy (NIC-to-VM-to-NIC) topology,
-but due to much higher dependency on intensive memory operations and
-sensitivity to Linux kernel scheduler settings and behaviour, this estimation
-may not always yield good enough accuracy.
-
-For detailed LF FD.io test bed specification and physical topology please refer to `LF FDio CSIT testbed wiki page <https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/CSIT_LF_testbed>`_.
-
-Performance Tests Coverage
---------------------------
-
-Performance tests are split into the two main categories:
-
-- Throughput discovery - discovery of packet forwarding rate using binary search
- in accordance to RFC2544.
-
- - NDR - discovery of Non Drop Rate packet throughput, at zero packet loss;
- followed by one-way packet latency measurements at 10%, 50% and 100% of
- discovered NDR throughput.
- - PDR - discovery of Partial Drop Rate, with specified non-zero packet loss
- currently set to 0.5%; followed by one-way packet latency measurements at
- 100% of discovered PDR throughput.
-
-- Throughput verification - verification of packet forwarding rate against
- previously discovered throughput rate. These tests are currently done against
- 0.9 of reference NDR, with reference rates updated periodically.
-
-CSIT |release| includes following performance test suites, listed per NIC type:
-
-- 2port10GE X520-DA2 Intel
-
- - **L2XC** - L2 Cross-Connect switched-forwarding of untagged, dot1q, dot1ad
- VLAN tagged Ethernet frames.
- - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
- with MAC learning; disabled MAC learning i.e. static MAC tests to be added.
- - **IPv4** - IPv4 routed-forwarding.
- - **IPv6** - IPv6 routed-forwarding.
- - **IPv4 Scale** - IPv4 routed-forwarding with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
- - **IPv6 Scale** - IPv6 routed-forwarding with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
- - **VM with vhost-user** - switching between NIC ports and VM over vhost-user
- interfaces in different switching modes incl. L2 Cross-Connect, L2
- Bridge-Domain, VXLAN with L2BD, IPv4 routed-forwarding.
- - **COP** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with COP address security.
- - **iACL** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with iACL address security.
- - **LISP** - LISP overlay tunneling for IPv4-over-IPV4, IPv6-over-IPv4,
- IPv6-over-IPv6, IPv4-over-IPv6 in IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding modes.
- - **VXLAN** - VXLAN overlay tunnelling integration with L2XC and L2BD.
- - **QoS Policer** - ingress packet rate measuring, marking and limiting
- (IPv4).
-
-- 2port40GE XL710 Intel
-
- - **L2XC** - L2 Cross-Connect switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames.
- - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
- with MAC learning.
- - **IPv4** - IPv4 routed-forwarding.
- - **IPv6** - IPv6 routed-forwarding.
- - **VM with vhost-user** - switching between NIC ports and VM over vhost-user
- interfaces in different switching modes incl. L2 Bridge-Domain.
-
-- 2port10GE X710 Intel
-
- - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
- with MAC learning.
- - **VM with vhost-user** - switching between NIC ports and VM over vhost-user
- interfaces in different switching modes incl. L2 Bridge-Domain.
-
-- 2port10GE VIC1227 Cisco
-
- - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
- with MAC learning.
-
-- 2port40GE VIC1385 Cisco
-
- - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
- with MAC learning.
-
-Execution of performance tests takes time, especially the throughput discovery
-tests. Due to limited HW testbed resources available within FD.io labs hosted
-by Linux Foundation, the number of tests for NICs other than X520 (a.k.a.
-Niantic) has been limited to few baseline tests. Over time we expect the HW
-testbed resources to grow, and will be adding complete set of performance
-tests for all models of hardware to be executed regularly and(or)
-continuously.
-
-Performance Tests Naming
-------------------------
-
-CSIT |release| follows a common structured naming convention for all
-performance and system functional tests, introduced in CSIT rls1701.
-
-The naming should be intuitive for majority of the tests. Complete
-description of CSIT test naming convention is provided on `CSIT test naming wiki
-<https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-test-naming>`_.
-
-Here few illustrative examples of the new naming usage for performance test
-suites:
-
-#. **Physical port to physical port - a.k.a. NIC-to-NIC, Phy-to-Phy, P2P**
-
- - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
- PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-TestType*
- - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
- Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline switching
- with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrchk.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE
- on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline
- switching with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4-ip4base-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on Intel
- x520 NIC, IPv4 baseline routed forwarding, NDR throughput discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip6-ip6scale200k-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
- Intel x520 NIC, IPv6 scaled up routed forwarding, NDR throughput
- discovery.
-
-#. **Physical port to VM (or VM chain) to physical port - a.k.a. NIC2VM2NIC,
- P2V2P, NIC2VMchain2NIC, P2V2V2P**
-
- - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
- PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-VirtEncapsulation-
- VirtPortConfig-VMconfig-TestType*
- - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports
- of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
- switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
- discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
- ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
- switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
- discovery.
- - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-4vhost-2vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
- ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
- switching to/from four vhost interfaces and two VMs, NDR throughput
- discovery.
-
-Methodology: Multi-Thread and Multi-Core
-----------------------------------------
-
-**HyperThreading** - CSIT |release| performance tests are executed with SUT
-servers' Intel XEON CPUs configured in HyperThreading Disabled mode (BIOS
-settings). This is the simplest configuration used to establish baseline
-single-thread single-core SW packet processing and forwarding performance.
-Subsequent releases of CSIT will add performance tests with Intel
-HyperThreading Enabled (requires BIOS settings change and hard reboot).
-
-**Multi-core Test** - CSIT |release| multi-core tests are executed in the
-following VPP thread and core configurations:
-
-#. 1t1c - 1 VPP worker thread on 1 CPU physical core.
-#. 2t2c - 2 VPP worker threads on 2 CPU physical cores.
-
-Note that in quite a few test cases running VPP on 2 physical cores hits
-the tested NIC I/O bandwidth or packets-per-second limit.
-
-Methodology: Packet Throughput
-------------------------------
-
-Following values are measured and reported for packet throughput tests:
-
-- NDR binary search per RFC2544:
-
- - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps
- (2x <per direction packets-per-second>)"
- - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
- second> Gbps (untagged)"
-
-- PDR binary search per RFC2544:
-
- - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps (2x
- <per direction packets-per-second>)"
- - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
- second> Gbps (untagged)"
- - Packet loss tolerance: "LOSS_ACCEPTANCE <accepted percentage of packets
- lost at PDR rate>""
-
-- NDR and PDR are measured for the following L2 frame sizes:
-
- - IPv4: 64B, IMIX_v4_1 (28x64B,16x570B,4x1518B), 1518B, 9000B.
- - IPv6: 78B, 1518B, 9000B.
-
-
-Methodology: Packet Latency
----------------------------
-
-TRex Traffic Generator (TG) is used for measuring latency of VPP DUTs. Reported
-latency values are measured using following methodology:
-
-- Latency tests are performed at 10%, 50% of discovered NDR rate (non drop rate)
- for each NDR throughput test and packet size (except IMIX).
-- TG sends dedicated latency streams, one per direction, each at the rate of
- 10kpps at the prescribed packet size; these are sent in addition to the main
- load streams.
-- TG reports min/avg/max latency values per stream direction, hence two sets
- of latency values are reported per test case; future release of TRex is
- expected to report latency percentiles.
-- Reported latency values are aggregate across two SUTs due to three node
- topology used for all performance tests; for per SUT latency, reported value
- should be divided by two.
-- 1usec is the measurement accuracy advertised by TRex TG for the setup used in
- FD.io labs used by CSIT project.
-- TRex setup introduces an always-on error of about 2*2usec per latency flow -
- additonal Tx/Rx interface latency induced by TRex SW writing and reading
- packet timestamps on CPU cores without HW acceleration on NICs closer to the
- interface line.
-
-
-Methodology: KVM VM vhost
--------------------------
-
-CSIT |release| introduced environment configuration changes to KVM Qemu vhost-
-user tests in order to more representatively measure VPP-17.01 performance in
-configurations with vhost-user interfaces and VMs.
-
-Current setup of CSIT FD.io performance lab is using tuned settings for more
-optimal performance of KVM Qemu:
-
-- Default Qemu virtio queue size of 256 descriptors.
-- Adjusted Linux kernel CFS scheduler settings, as detailed on this CSIT wiki
- page: https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-perf-env-tuning-ubuntu1604.
-
-Adjusted Linux kernel CFS settings make the NDR and PDR throughput performance
-of VPP+VM system less sensitive to other Linux OS system tasks by reducing
-their interference on CPU cores that are designated for critical software
-tasks under test, namely VPP worker threads in host and Testpmd threads in
-guest dealing with data plan.
+Overview
+========
+
+Tested Physical Topologies
+--------------------------
+
+CSIT VPP performance tests are executed on physical baremetal servers hosted by
+LF FD.io project. Testbed physical topology is shown in the figure below.
+
+::
+
+ +------------------------+ +------------------------+
+ | | | |
+ | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | | <-----------------> | |
+ | | DUT1 | | | | DUT2 | |
+ | +--^---------------+ | | +---------------^--+ |
+ | | | | | |
+ | | SUT1 | | SUT2 | |
+ +------------------------+ +------------------^-----+
+ | |
+ | |
+ | +-----------+ |
+ | | | |
+ +------------------> TG <------------------+
+ | |
+ +-----------+
+
+SUT1 and SUT2 are two System Under Test servers (Cisco UCS C240, each with two
+Intel XEON CPUs), TG is a Traffic Generator (TG, another Cisco UCS C240, with
+two Intel XEON CPUs). SUTs run VPP SW application in Linux user-mode as a
+Device Under Test (DUT). TG runs TRex SW application as a packet Traffic
+Generator. Physical connectivity between SUTs and to TG is provided using
+different NIC models that need to be tested for performance. Currently
+installed and tested NIC models include:
+
+#. 2port10GE X520-DA2 Intel.
+#. 2port10GE X710 Intel.
+#. 2port10GE VIC1227 Cisco.
+#. 2port40GE VIC1385 Cisco.
+#. 2port40GE XL710 Intel.
+
+From SUT and DUT perspective, all performance tests involve forwarding packets
+between two physical Ethernet ports (10GE or 40GE). Due to the number of
+listed NIC models tested and available PCI slot capacity in SUT servers, in
+all of the above cases both physical ports are located on the same NIC. In
+some test cases this results in measured packet throughput being limited not
+by VPP DUT but by either the physical interface or the NIC capacity.
+
+Going forward CSIT project will be looking to add more hardware into FD.io
+performance labs to address larger scale multi-interface and multi-NIC
+performance testing scenarios.
+
+For test cases that require DUT (VPP) to communicate with VM(s) over vhost-user
+interfaces, N of VM instances are created on SUT1 and SUT2. For N=1 DUT (VPP)
+forwards packets between vhostuser and physical interfaces. For N>1 DUT (VPP) a
+logical service chain forwarding topology is created on DUT (VPP) by applying L2
+or IPv4/IPv6 configuration depending on the test suite.
+DUT (VPP) test topology with N VM instances
+is shown in the figure below including applicable packet flow thru the DUTs and
+VMs (marked in the figure with ``***``).
+
+::
+
+ +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
+ | +---------+ +---------+ | | +---------+ +---------+ |
+ | | VM[1] | | VM[N] | | | | VM[1] | | VM[N] | |
+ | | ***** | | ***** | | | | ***** | | ***** | |
+ | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ | | +--^---^--+ +--^---^--+ |
+ | *| |* *| |* | | *| |* *| |* |
+ | +--v---v-------v---v--+ | | +--v---v-------v---v--+ |
+ | | * * * * |*|***********|*| * * * * | |
+ | | * ********* ***<-|-----------|->*** ********* * | |
+ | | * DUT1 | | | | DUT2 * | |
+ | +--^------------------+ | | +------------------^--+ |
+ | *| | | |* |
+ | *| SUT1 | | SUT2 |* |
+ +-------------------------+ +-------------------------+
+ *| |*
+ *| |*
+ *| +-----------+ |*
+ *| | | |*
+ *+--------------------> TG <--------------------+*
+ **********************| |**********************
+ +-----------+
+
+For VM tests, packets are switched by DUT (VPP) multiple times: twice for a
+single VM, three times for two VMs, N+1 times for N VMs.
+Hence the external
+throughput rates measured by TG and listed in this report must be multiplied
+by (N+1) to represent the actual DUT aggregate packet forwarding rate.
+
+Note that reported VPP performance results are specific to the SUTs tested.
+Current LF FD.io SUTs are based on Intel XEON E5-2699v3 2.3GHz CPUs. SUTs with
+other CPUs are likely to yield different results. A good rule of thumb, that
+can be applied to estimate VPP packet thoughput for Phy-to-Phy (NIC-to-NIC,
+PCI-to-PCI) topology, is to expect the forwarding performance to be
+proportional to CPU core frequency, assuming CPU is the only limiting factor
+and all other SUT parameters equivalent to FD.io CSIT environment. The same rule
+of thumb can be also applied for Phy-to-VM-to-Phy (NIC-to-VM-to-NIC) topology,
+but due to much higher dependency on intensive memory operations and
+sensitivity to Linux kernel scheduler settings and behaviour, this estimation
+may not always yield good enough accuracy.
+
+For detailed LF FD.io test bed specification and physical topology please refer
+to `LF FDio CSIT testbed wiki page <https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/CSIT_LF_testbed>`_.
+
+Performance Tests Coverage
+--------------------------
+
+Performance tests are split into the two main categories:
+
+- Throughput discovery - discovery of packet forwarding rate using binary search
+ in accordance to RFC2544.
+
+ - NDR - discovery of Non Drop Rate packet throughput, at zero packet loss;
+ followed by one-way packet latency measurements at 10%, 50% and 100% of
+ discovered NDR throughput.
+ - PDR - discovery of Partial Drop Rate, with specified non-zero packet loss
+ currently set to 0.5%; followed by one-way packet latency measurements at
+ 100% of discovered PDR throughput.
+
+- Throughput verification - verification of packet forwarding rate against
+ previously discovered throughput rate. These tests are currently done against
+ 0.9 of reference NDR, with reference rates updated periodically.
+
+CSIT |release| includes following performance test suites, listed per NIC type:
+
+- 2port10GE X520-DA2 Intel
+
+ - **L2XC** - L2 Cross-Connect switched-forwarding of untagged, dot1q, dot1ad
+ VLAN tagged Ethernet frames.
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning; disabled MAC learning i.e. static MAC tests to be added.
+ - **IPv4** - IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPv6** - IPv6 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPv4 Scale** - IPv4 routed-forwarding with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
+ - **IPv6 Scale** - IPv6 routed-forwarding with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
+ - **VMs with vhost-user** - virtual topologies with 1 VM and service chains
+ of 2 VMs using vhost-user interfaces, with VPP forwarding modes incl. L2
+ Cross-Connect, L2 Bridge-Domain, VXLAN with L2BD, IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **COP** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with COP address security.
+ - **iACL** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with iACL address security.
+ - **LISP** - LISP overlay tunneling for IPv4-over-IPv4, IPv6-over-IPv4,
+ IPv6-over-IPv6, IPv4-over-IPv6 in IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding modes.
+ - **VXLAN** - VXLAN overlay tunnelling integration with L2XC and L2BD.
+ - **QoS Policer** - ingress packet rate measuring, marking and limiting
+ (IPv4).
+
+- 2port40GE XL710 Intel
+
+ - **L2XC** - L2 Cross-Connect switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames.
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+ - **IPv4** - IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPv6** - IPv6 routed-forwarding.
+ - **VMs with vhost-user** - virtual topologies with 1 VM and service chains
+ of 2 VMs using vhost-user interfaces, with VPP forwarding modes incl. L2
+ Cross-Connect, L2 Bridge-Domain, VXLAN with L2BD, IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPSec** - IPSec encryption with AES-GCM, CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in combination
+ with IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPSec+LISP** - IPSec encryption with CBC-SHA1 ciphers, in combination
+ with LISP-GPE overlay tunneling for IPv4-over-IPv4.
+
+- 2port10GE X710 Intel
+
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+ - **VMs with vhost-user** - virtual topologies with 1 VM using vhost-user
+ interfaces, with VPP forwarding modes incl. L2 Bridge-Domain.
+
+- 2port10GE VIC1227 Cisco
+
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+
+- 2port40GE VIC1385 Cisco
+
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+
+Execution of performance tests takes time, especially the throughput discovery
+tests. Due to limited HW testbed resources available within FD.io labs hosted
+by Linux Foundation, the number of tests for NICs other than X520 (a.k.a.
+Niantic) has been limited to few baseline tests. Over time we expect the HW
+testbed resources to grow, and will be adding complete set of performance
+tests for all models of hardware to be executed regularly and(or)
+continuously.
+
+Performance Tests Naming
+------------------------
+
+CSIT |release| follows a common structured naming convention for all
+performance and system functional tests, introduced in CSIT rls1701.
+
+The naming should be intuitive for majority of the tests. Complete
+description of CSIT test naming convention is provided on `CSIT test naming wiki
+<https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-test-naming>`_.
+
+Here few illustrative examples of the new naming usage for performance test
+suites:
+
+#. **Physical port to physical port - a.k.a. NIC-to-NIC, Phy-to-Phy, P2P**
+
+ - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
+ PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-TestType*
+ - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
+ Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline switching
+ with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrchk.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE
+ on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline
+ switching with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4-ip4base-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on Intel
+ x520 NIC, IPv4 baseline routed forwarding, NDR throughput discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip6-ip6scale200k-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
+ Intel x520 NIC, IPv6 scaled up routed forwarding, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+
+#. **Physical port to VM (or VM chain) to physical port - a.k.a. NIC2VM2NIC,
+ P2V2P, NIC2VMchain2NIC, P2V2V2P**
+
+ - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
+ PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-VirtEncapsulation-
+ VirtPortConfig-VMconfig-TestType*
+ - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports
+ of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
+ switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
+ ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
+ switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-4vhost-2vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
+ ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
+ switching to/from four vhost interfaces and two VMs, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+
+Methodology: Multi-Thread and Multi-Core
+----------------------------------------
+
+**HyperThreading** - CSIT |release| performance tests are executed with SUT
+servers' Intel XEON CPUs configured in HyperThreading Disabled mode (BIOS
+settings). This is the simplest configuration used to establish baseline
+single-thread single-core SW packet processing and forwarding performance.
+Subsequent releases of CSIT will add performance tests with Intel
+HyperThreading Enabled (requires BIOS settings change and hard reboot).
+
+**Multi-core Test** - CSIT |release| multi-core tests are executed in the
+following VPP thread and core configurations:
+
+#. 1t1c - 1 VPP worker thread on 1 CPU physical core.
+#. 2t2c - 2 VPP worker threads on 2 CPU physical cores.
+
+Note that in quite a few test cases running VPP on 2 physical cores hits
+the tested NIC I/O bandwidth or packets-per-second limit.
+
+Methodology: Packet Throughput
+------------------------------
+
+Following values are measured and reported for packet throughput tests:
+
+- NDR binary search per RFC2544:
+
+ - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps
+ (2x <per direction packets-per-second>)"
+ - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
+ second> Gbps (untagged)"
+
+- PDR binary search per RFC2544:
+
+ - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps (2x
+ <per direction packets-per-second>)"
+ - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
+ second> Gbps (untagged)"
+ - Packet loss tolerance: "LOSS_ACCEPTANCE <accepted percentage of packets
+ lost at PDR rate>""
+
+- NDR and PDR are measured for the following L2 frame sizes:
+
+ - IPv4: 64B, IMIX_v4_1 (28x64B,16x570B,4x1518B), 1518B, 9000B.
+ - IPv6: 78B, 1518B, 9000B.
+
+
+Methodology: Packet Latency
+---------------------------
+
+TRex Traffic Generator (TG) is used for measuring latency of VPP DUTs. Reported
+latency values are measured using following methodology:
+
+- Latency tests are performed at 10%, 50% of discovered NDR rate (non drop rate)
+ for each NDR throughput test and packet size (except IMIX).
+- TG sends dedicated latency streams, one per direction, each at the rate of
+ 10kpps at the prescribed packet size; these are sent in addition to the main
+ load streams.
+- TG reports min/avg/max latency values per stream direction, hence two sets
+ of latency values are reported per test case; future release of TRex is
+ expected to report latency percentiles.
+- Reported latency values are aggregate across two SUTs due to three node
+ topology used for all performance tests; for per SUT latency, reported value
+ should be divided by two.
+- 1usec is the measurement accuracy advertised by TRex TG for the setup used in
+ FD.io labs used by CSIT project.
+- TRex setup introduces an always-on error of about 2*2usec per latency flow -
+ additonal Tx/Rx interface latency induced by TRex SW writing and reading
+ packet timestamps on CPU cores without HW acceleration on NICs closer to the
+ interface line.
+
+
+Methodology: KVM VM vhost
+-------------------------
+
+CSIT |release| introduced environment configuration changes to KVM Qemu vhost-
+user tests in order to more representatively measure VPP-17.04 performance in
+configurations with vhost-user interfaces and VMs.
+
+Current setup of CSIT FD.io performance lab is using tuned settings for more
+optimal performance of KVM Qemu:
+
+- Qemu virtio queue size has been increased from default value of 256 to 1024
+ descriptors.
+- Adjusted Linux kernel CFS scheduler settings, as detailed on this CSIT wiki
+ page: https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-perf-env-tuning-ubuntu1604.
+
+Adjusted Linux kernel CFS settings make the NDR and PDR throughput performance
+of VPP+VM system less sensitive to other Linux OS system tasks by reducing
+their interference on CPU cores that are designated for critical software
+tasks under test, namely VPP worker threads in host and Testpmd threads in
+guest dealing with data plan.