TY - GEN
T1 - Prism
T2 - 42nd IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, ICDCS 2022
AU - Munikar, Manish
AU - Lei, Jiaxin
AU - Lu, Hui
AU - Rao, Jia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Advanced high-speed network cards have made packet processing in host operating systems a major performance bottleneck. The kernel network stack gives rise to various sources of overheads that limit the throughput and lengthen the per-packet processing latency. The problem is further exacerbated for short-lived, latency-sensitive network flows such as control packets, online gaming, database requests, etc. - in a highly utilized system, especially in virtualized (containerized) cloud environments, short flows can experience excessively long in-kernel queuing delays. As a consequence, recent research works propose to bypass the kernel network stack to enable lightweight, custom userspace network stacks for improved performance, but at a heavy cost of compatibility and security. In this paper, we take a different approach: We first analyze various sources of inefficiencies in the kernel network stack and propose ways to mitigate them without compromising systems compatibility, security, or flexibility. Further, we propose Prism, a novel mechanism in the kernel network stack to differentiate incoming packets based on their performance requirements and streamline the processing stages of multi-stage packet processing pipelines (e.g., in container overlay networks). Our evaluation demonstrates that Prism can significantly improve the latency of high-priority flows in container overly networks in the presence of heavy low-priority background traffic.
AB - Advanced high-speed network cards have made packet processing in host operating systems a major performance bottleneck. The kernel network stack gives rise to various sources of overheads that limit the throughput and lengthen the per-packet processing latency. The problem is further exacerbated for short-lived, latency-sensitive network flows such as control packets, online gaming, database requests, etc. - in a highly utilized system, especially in virtualized (containerized) cloud environments, short flows can experience excessively long in-kernel queuing delays. As a consequence, recent research works propose to bypass the kernel network stack to enable lightweight, custom userspace network stacks for improved performance, but at a heavy cost of compatibility and security. In this paper, we take a different approach: We first analyze various sources of inefficiencies in the kernel network stack and propose ways to mitigate them without compromising systems compatibility, security, or flexibility. Further, we propose Prism, a novel mechanism in the kernel network stack to differentiate incoming packets based on their performance requirements and streamline the processing stages of multi-stage packet processing pipelines (e.g., in container overlay networks). Our evaluation demonstrates that Prism can significantly improve the latency of high-priority flows in container overly networks in the presence of heavy low-priority background traffic.
KW - container overlay network
KW - kernel network stack
KW - packet processing
KW - performance differentiation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140897020&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICDCS54860.2022.00040
DO - 10.1109/ICDCS54860.2022.00040
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85140897020
T3 - Proceedings - International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems
SP - 336
EP - 346
BT - Proceedings - 2022 IEEE 42nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, ICDCS 2022
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 10 July 2022 through 13 July 2022
ER -