KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers

Muhammad Siraj Rathore; Markus Hidel; Peter Sjödin

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11

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KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers

Muhammad Siraj Rathore, Markus Hidel, Peter Sjödin

Published in American Journal of Networks and Communications (Volume 2, Issue 4)

Received: 10 July 2013 Published: 20 August 2013

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Abstract

Concerns have been raised about the performance of PC-based virtual routers as they do packet processing in software. Furthermore, it becomes challenging to maintain isolation among virtual routers due to resource contention in a shared environment. Hardware vendors recognize this issue and PC hardware with virtualization support (SR-IOV and Intel-VTd) has been introduced in recent years. In this paper, we investigate how such hardware features can be integrated with two different virtualization technologies (LXC and KVM) to enhance performance and isolation of virtual routers on shared environments. We compare LXC and KVM and our results indicate that KVM in combination with hardware support can provide better trade-offs between performance and isolation. We notice that KVM has slightly lower throughput, but has superior isolation properties by providing more explicit control of CPU resources. We demonstrate that KVM allows defining a CPU share for a virtual router, something that is difficult to achieve in LXC, where packet forwarding is done in a kernel shared by all virtual routers.

Published in	American Journal of Networks and Communications (Volume 2, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11
Page(s)	88-96
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2013. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Network Virtualization, Virtual Router (VR), SR-IOV, Virtual Function (VF), SoftIRQ, NAPI

References

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[2]	S. Rathore, M. Hidell, P. Sjödin, "Performance Evaluation of Open Virtual Routers," IEEE GlobeCom workshop on future Internet, Miami USA, December 2010.
[3]	S. Rathore, M. Hidell, P. Sjödin, "Data Plane Optimization in OpenVirtual Routers," IFIP Networking, Valencia Spain, May 2011.
[4]	G. Somani, S. Chaudhary, "Application performance isolation in virtualization," IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing, Bangalore India, September 2009.
[5]	PCI-SIG: PCI-SIG Single Root I/O Virtualization Specifications, http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/iov/single_root/
[6]	A.Kivity, Y.Kamay, D.Laor, "KVM: Linux virtual machine monitor," Proceedings of Linux Symposium, Ottawa Canada, June 2007.
[7]	Linux Namespaces, http://lxc.sourceforge.net/index.php/about/kernel-namespaces/
[8]	Linux process scheduler, https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt
[9]	N. Egi, A. Greenhalgh, M. Handley, M. Hoerdt, L. Mathy, and T. Schooley, "Evaluating Xen for virtual routers," IEEE ICCCN workshop on Performance Modeling and Evaluation in Computer and Telecommunication Networks (PMECT07), Honolulu USA, August 2007.
[10]	F. Anhalt, P. Primet, "Analysis and experimental evaluation of data plane virtualization with Xen," IEEE International Conference on Networking and Services (ICNS), Valencia Spain, April 2009.
[11]	Greenhalgh, M. Handley, L. Mathy, N. Egi, M. Hoerdt, and F. Huici, "Fairness issues in software virtual routers," ACM SIGCOMM PRESTO Workshop, Seattle USA, August 2008.
[12]	S. Bhatia et al. "Hosting virtual networks on commodity hardware," Georgia Tech. University, Tech. Report, GT-CS-07-10, January 2008.
[13]	J. Liu, "Evaluating Standard-Based Self-Virtualizing Devices: A Performance Study on 10 GbE NICs with SR-IOV support," IEEE International Symposium on parallel and distributed processing, Atlanta USA, 2010.
[14]	Y. Dong, X. Yang, X. Li, J. Li, K. Tian, H. Guan, "High Performance Network Virtualization with SR-IOV," IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture, Banglore India, 2010.
[15]	S. Rathore, M. Hidell, P. Sjödin, "PC-based Router Virtualization with Hardware Support," IEEE International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA), Fukuoka Japan, March 2012.
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APA Style

Muhammad Siraj Rathore, Markus Hidel, Peter Sjödin. (2013). KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers. American Journal of Networks and Communications, 2(4), 88-96. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11

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ACS Style

Muhammad Siraj Rathore; Markus Hidel; Peter Sjödin. KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers. Am. J. Netw. Commun. 2013, 2(4), 88-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11

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AMA Style

Muhammad Siraj Rathore, Markus Hidel, Peter Sjödin. KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers. Am J Netw Commun. 2013;2(4):88-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11

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@article{10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11,
  author = {Muhammad Siraj Rathore and Markus Hidel and Peter Sjödin},
  title = {KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers},
  journal = {American Journal of Networks and Communications},
  volume = {2},
  number = {4},
  pages = {88-96},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajnc.20130204.11},
  abstract = {Concerns have been raised about the performance of PC-based virtual routers as they do packet processing in software. Furthermore, it becomes challenging to maintain isolation among virtual routers due to resource contention in a shared environment. Hardware vendors recognize this issue and PC hardware with virtualization support (SR-IOV and Intel-VTd) has been introduced in recent years. In this paper, we investigate how such hardware features can be integrated with two different virtualization technologies (LXC and KVM) to enhance performance and isolation of virtual routers on shared environments. We compare LXC and KVM and our results indicate that KVM in combination with hardware support can provide better trade-offs between performance and isolation. We notice that KVM has slightly lower throughput, but has superior isolation properties by providing more explicit control of CPU resources. We demonstrate that KVM allows defining a CPU share for a virtual router, something that is difficult to achieve in LXC, where packet forwarding is done in a kernel shared by all virtual routers.},
 year = {2013}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers
AU  - Muhammad Siraj Rathore
AU  - Markus Hidel
AU  - Peter Sjödin
Y1  - 2013/08/20
PY  - 2013
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11
T2  - American Journal of Networks and Communications
JF  - American Journal of Networks and Communications
JO  - American Journal of Networks and Communications
SP  - 88
EP  - 96
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2326-8964
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11
AB  - Concerns have been raised about the performance of PC-based virtual routers as they do packet processing in software. Furthermore, it becomes challenging to maintain isolation among virtual routers due to resource contention in a shared environment. Hardware vendors recognize this issue and PC hardware with virtualization support (SR-IOV and Intel-VTd) has been introduced in recent years. In this paper, we investigate how such hardware features can be integrated with two different virtualization technologies (LXC and KVM) to enhance performance and isolation of virtual routers on shared environments. We compare LXC and KVM and our results indicate that KVM in combination with hardware support can provide better trade-offs between performance and isolation. We notice that KVM has slightly lower throughput, but has superior isolation properties by providing more explicit control of CPU resources. We demonstrate that KVM allows defining a CPU share for a virtual router, something that is difficult to achieve in LXC, where packet forwarding is done in a kernel shared by all virtual routers.
VL  - 2
IS  - 4
ER  -

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Author Information

Muhammad Siraj Rathore

Network Systems Laboratory, School of ICT, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Markus Hidel

Network Systems Laboratory, School of ICT, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Peter Sjödin

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Muhammad Siraj Rathore, Markus Hidel, Peter Sjödin. (2013). KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers. American Journal of Networks and Communications, 2(4), 88-96. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11

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ACS Style

Muhammad Siraj Rathore; Markus Hidel; Peter Sjödin. KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers. Am. J. Netw. Commun. 2013, 2(4), 88-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11

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AMA Style

Muhammad Siraj Rathore, Markus Hidel, Peter Sjödin. KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers. Am J Netw Commun. 2013;2(4):88-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11,
  author = {Muhammad Siraj Rathore and Markus Hidel and Peter Sjödin},
  title = {KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers},
  journal = {American Journal of Networks and Communications},
  volume = {2},
  number = {4},
  pages = {88-96},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajnc.20130204.11},
  abstract = {Concerns have been raised about the performance of PC-based virtual routers as they do packet processing in software. Furthermore, it becomes challenging to maintain isolation among virtual routers due to resource contention in a shared environment. Hardware vendors recognize this issue and PC hardware with virtualization support (SR-IOV and Intel-VTd) has been introduced in recent years. In this paper, we investigate how such hardware features can be integrated with two different virtualization technologies (LXC and KVM) to enhance performance and isolation of virtual routers on shared environments. We compare LXC and KVM and our results indicate that KVM in combination with hardware support can provide better trade-offs between performance and isolation. We notice that KVM has slightly lower throughput, but has superior isolation properties by providing more explicit control of CPU resources. We demonstrate that KVM allows defining a CPU share for a virtual router, something that is difficult to achieve in LXC, where packet forwarding is done in a kernel shared by all virtual routers.},
 year = {2013}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - KVM vs. LXC: Comparing Performance and Isolation of Hardware-assisted Virtual Routers
AU  - Muhammad Siraj Rathore
AU  - Markus Hidel
AU  - Peter Sjödin
Y1  - 2013/08/20
PY  - 2013
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11
T2  - American Journal of Networks and Communications
JF  - American Journal of Networks and Communications
JO  - American Journal of Networks and Communications
SP  - 88
EP  - 96
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2326-8964
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20130204.11
AB  - Concerns have been raised about the performance of PC-based virtual routers as they do packet processing in software. Furthermore, it becomes challenging to maintain isolation among virtual routers due to resource contention in a shared environment. Hardware vendors recognize this issue and PC hardware with virtualization support (SR-IOV and Intel-VTd) has been introduced in recent years. In this paper, we investigate how such hardware features can be integrated with two different virtualization technologies (LXC and KVM) to enhance performance and isolation of virtual routers on shared environments. We compare LXC and KVM and our results indicate that KVM in combination with hardware support can provide better trade-offs between performance and isolation. We notice that KVM has slightly lower throughput, but has superior isolation properties by providing more explicit control of CPU resources. We demonstrate that KVM allows defining a CPU share for a virtual router, something that is difficult to achieve in LXC, where packet forwarding is done in a kernel shared by all virtual routers.
VL  - 2
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download