KBP: Kernel Enhancements for Low-Latency Networking for Virtual Machine and Container without Application Customization∗

Abstract

Packet processing on commodity hardware is a cost-efficient and flexible alternative to specialized networking hardware. However, virtualizing dedicated networking hardware as a virtual machine (VM) or a container on a commodity server results in performance problems, such as longer latency and lower throughput. This paper focuses on obtaining a low-latency networking system in a VM and a container. We reveal mechanisms that cause millisecond-scale networking delays in a VM through a series of experiments. To eliminate such delays, we design and implement a low-latency networking system, kernel busy poll (KBP), which achieves three goals: (1) microsecond-scale tail delays and higher throughput than conventional solutions are achieved in a VM and a container; (2) application customization is not required, so applications can use the POSIX sockets application program interface; and (3) KBP software does not need to be developed for every Linux kernel security update. KBP can be applied to both a VM configuration and a container configuration. Evaluation results indicate that KBP achieves microsecond-scale tail delays in both a VM and a container. In the VM configuration, KBP reduces maximum round-trip latency by more than 98% and increases the throughput by up to three times compared with existing NAPI and Open vSwitch with the Data Plane Development Kit (OvS-DPDK). In the container configuration, KBP reduces maximum round-trip latency by 21% to 96% and increases the throughput by up to 1.28 times compared with NAPI.