An Intel-VMware Perspective: Intelligent Queuing Technologies for Virtualization

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White Paper

Intelligent Queueing Technologies

for Virtualization

An Intel-VMware Perspective: Enhanced Network

Performance in Virtualized Servers

Introduction

As server virtualization continues to grow in IT departments – from small businesses to enterprises – virtualization

technologies continue to evolve, improving system throughput for virtual machines and enhancing performance in

virtual environments. Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) is another breakthrough technology from Intel that

helps offload network I/O data processing from the hypervisor software to the network silicon. When combined

with VMware’s network multi-queue technology (NetQueue), VMDq improves I/O throughput for faster, more

efficient networking.

Summary of content (4 pages)

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White Paper Intelligent Queueing Technologies for Virtualization An Intel-VMware Perspective: Enhanced Network Performance in Virtualized Servers Introduction As server virtualization continues to grow in IT departments – from small businesses to enterprises – virtualization technologies continue to evolve, improving system throughput for virtual machines and enhancing performance in virtual environments.
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Table of Contents Bigger Burdens for Hypervisors Bigger Burdens for Hypervisors....................................2 Deploying virtualized environments on more powerful platforms is a growing practice among IT departments in order to consolidate server workloads and reduce data center footprints. However, this practice can have a significant impact on system and application performance as workloads increasingly depend on network I/O.
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VM1 VM 2 VMn vNIC vNIC vNIC App Operating System App Layer 2 Software Switch Rx n Rx 1 Rx 1 Tx 1 Tx 3 Tx 2 Tx 3 Tx 2 Tx 3 ESX Operating System App Operating System Layer 2 Classifier/Sorter NIC with VMDq 10 GbE App Rx n Rx 2 Rx 1 Operating System CPU Cores VMs MAC/PHY Figure 3. NetQueue improves receive-side networking performance.
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10.0 9.2 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. 9.5 Throughput 8.0 6.0 4.0 4.0 2.