Shenick Network Systems. diversifeye TeraVM. Massively Scaled IP Test Solutions using Cisco Unified Computing Systems

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1 Shenick Network Systems diversifeye TeraVM Scale tests from 10Gig to 4 Terabits Massively Scaled IP Test Solutions using Cisco Unified Computing Systems TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 1

2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction Why use Virtualization Technology to deliver IP test solutions Challenges of scaling IP test solutions with Virtualization 3 2. TeraVM - extreme traffic load generation Deploying TeraVM TeraVM Virtual Test Card Resource Management Managing a massively scaled test run in TeraVM Real end point configurations in TeraVM Scale with ease 7 3. Reviewing Performance TeraVM on user specific hardware, testing physical devices Performance per UCS Conclusion...13 TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 2

3 1. Introduction 1.1. Why use Virtualization Technology to deliver IP test solutions Testing of Next Generation Networks and devices is pushing the performance limits associated with existing IP emulation and performance measurement systems. Especially, when dedicated hardware is in use, there is a performance limitation related to the level of stateful application traffic which can be emulated. This tends to be in the tens of gigabits. To scale to extreme traffic loads or hundreds of gigabits of stateful application data, requires something new and unique. Virtualization technology is one way in which both service providers and network equipment manufacturers can scale existing and new test environments with ease, to meet the demand of testing with extreme loads of stateful traffic Challenges of scaling IP test solutions with Virtualization One of the advantages of using virtualization technologies is that both service providers and network equipment vendors can utilize their own off the shelf hardware. One of the key principles of virtualization is to enable flexibility and elasticity of the off the shelf hardware. IP test and measurement solutions tend to use the virtual processing cores to enable a number of virtual test interfaces. An approximation of bandwidth or throughput per interface is related to the speeds at which the cores run. However, when scaling IP test solutions on a virtual platform, a number of unique challenges must be overcome: Efficient Resource Usage Maximize Throughput per virtual test port. Distributed Management Ability to scale and control hundreds of virtual test interface cards. Live Test Control Adjust traffic volume or scale live during the test run. Real-time Performance Analysis View and Analyse test results live during testing. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 3

4 2. TeraVM - extreme traffic load generation TeraVM utilizes the hundreds of man years of experience and the award winning per flow software of Shenick s diversifeye solution to deliver the next generation of extreme traffic load emulation. TeraVM uses virtualization technologies to enable traffic flows used to test entities in the cloud and/or on the actual physical relative. Service providers and network equipment vendors are leveraging Shenick's long track record and experience in IP testing, to deploy test capabilities ranging from a few tens of giagabits to the scaled levels of hundreds of gigabits per second. TeraVM provides stateful emulation, test and performance measurements covering a wide range of application flows e.g. Video, Voice and Data. Using a per flow test solution, with real time analysis provides the necessary granularity to define exact performance limitations when testing with loads of extreme bandwidth Deploying TeraVM TeraVM is an IP test and performance measurement solution which can be deployed to the end users own off the shelf hardware. TeraVM requires a third party Hypervisor to manage the hardware resources. TeraVM is designed independent of hardware and FPGA accelerators and can leverage the power of next generation processors and server hardware, to scale easily to 100Gigabits of stateful application flows with minimal hardware, rack-space and power. TeraVM is also designed independent of the managing Hypervisor and can be run all major Hypervisors - ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM or Xen. TeraVM 8 x core = 16Gbps Hypervisor User Specific Hardware User Specific Figure 1 : TeraVM uses off the shelf hardware managed by a Hypervisor solution to deliver virtual machines which are then used as individual traffic emulation cores or virtual test interface cards. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 4

5 2.2. TeraVM Virtual Test Card Resource Management TeraVM dedicates a virtual machine, Virtual Master Control (VMC), for the management, control and performance metrics gathering for a defined number of TeraVM packet processing (TPP) modules. Four Terabits of scaled traffic is the theoretical limits of this singular controlled, distributed architecture. A key benefit of a dedicated VMC is that each deployed TPP is solely dedicated to emulating stateful traffic flows. The separation of the VMC and the TPP ensures maximum throughput performance per dedicated virtual core. The TeraVM VMC facilitates the user to build scaled test case scenarios using the dedicated Java GUI client or automation facility. The most significant benefit of this distributed architecture; is that additional TPP are automatically identified in the test environment. Using a unique load balancing feature in TeraVM, the additional resources can be swiftly integrated into the test case, with a single mouse click. Alternatively, automated setups will include all new resources when a test starts. Figure 2 : TeraVM s virtual test card load balancing feature greatly simplifies the addition of new virtual test resources in the distributed environment. Simply mouse click the radio button associated with the virtual card resource to include in the test case. There is no requirement to rebuild test xml for the scaled environment. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 5

6 2.3. Managing a massively scaled test run in TeraVM TeraVM uses diversifeye s capability to automatically manage the ramp up of highly scaled test runs. An unrealistic network scenario would be to present all the emulated end points and stateful application traffic requests at a single instance in time. Using diversifeye s traffic profiling with statistical distruibution capability, it s possible to automatically ramp the test to hundreds of giabits over a set period of time. Furthermore using diversifeye s live test reporting capability a live status of the test ramp up is displayed. Figure 3 : TeraVM uses 100% of diversifeye s capabilities, providing live visual indicators on the status of the test, as the test ramps to full capacity. If issues occur in the massively scaled test run, it s possible to debug the test run by isolating and running packet captures on a number of the corrupt entities. When the scaled throughput test is running, an important management function is the ability to vary load conditions, without having to stop the test run. Using diversifeye s service state feature, it s possible to bring large swathes of applications or emulated end points dynamically in and out of service. This dynamic adjustment of load may be done at a granular or on a per flow basis, providing an exact measurement on performance limitations in the massively scaled environment. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 6

7 2.4. Real end point configurations in TeraVM TeraVM emulates as close to real the actual end point attempting connection with the target device, on a physical network or cloud infrastructure. TeraVM enables users emulate the layer 2 and layer 3 properties of the device, with a unique MAC and IP address. The key benefit of emulation is the ability to quickly scale to thousands of TCP/UDP connections, each with unique characteristics representing smartphones, PCs, VoIP phones, etc. That implies each emulated flow in TeraVM is unique Scale with ease TeraVM provides the necessary granularity to emulate unique flows with MAC Address, IP Address, TCP/UDP characteristics with a mix of video/data/voice application payloads. In addition, TeraVM provides real-time performance analysis on each and every emulated flow. Furthermore, TeraVM allows users to continually expand the test environment but retain the same level of detail per TCP/UDP flow, a sample test environment starts with tens of gigabits (1 or 2 TeraVM packet processing modules) and is easily be scaled to hundreds of gigabits of traffic, in a plug n play manner. Traffic may be assigned to cloud testing or equally used to load interfaces in a physical network or path. Figure 4 : Using TeraVM per flow emulation it s possible to scale to thousands of devices and applications accessing the cloud infrastructure. The massively scaled environment enables realistic testing of backhaul infrastructure and data center technologies. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 7

8 3. Reviewing Performance In a highly scaled test environment it s critical to be able to view performance at an aggregate level, but it s also desirable to be able to drill down to the individual virtual test cards. However, the real benefit of the TeraVM is the ability to do both as mentioned, but more importantly TeraVM allows the user to drill down into each and every individual emulated TCP/UDP connection in order to view performance on a per application basis. System level performance Performance per TeraVM packet processing test card TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 8

9 Performance on a per connection, per application basis Figure 5 : TeraVM provides a number of system wide performance views, measurements can be aggregate results or can be viewed on a per flow basis for unique emulated TCP/UDP clients. In TeraVM, the Virtual Master Control card is the interface to both the management of the test run and collection of performance measurements. Through the Java GUI it s possible to examine in real-time, performance measurements at an aggregate level. Alternatively, it s possible to deep dive into each and every flow in order to gain a clearer picture of performance. TeraVM facilitates results being exported to standard report files such as csv or pdf. TeraVM s performance measurements are used to examine the performance of the VM network architecture / physical device under extreme load conditions by firstly showing that the network and devices are operational and secondly showing that the various network QoS settings are correct. * See Shenick s website for a detailed software overview - TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 9

10 4. TeraVM on user specific hardware, testing physical devices TeraVM uses virtualization technologies to test entities in the cloud, or alternatively TeraVM s generated traffic load can be pushed and aggregated via physical switches to enable highly scaled throughput testing. Users of TeraVM are free to choose any hardware provider to enable the virtual IP test solution. For the purpose of this case study; the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) device, C220 M3 Rack Server (Intel E5-2690: 2.9 GHz) is used. The aim is to show TeraVM as a complete solution with no degradation in capability and performance. Switch Emulated Traffic Figure 6 : Shenick s TeraVM can be deployed to user specific hardware running any Hypervisor ESXi, Hyper-v, KVM or Xen. In the case of the Cisco UCS C220 M3 (256 GB of RAM), the TeraVM memory footprint is tiny. This significantly small footprint requirement per TeraVM further reduces the cost requirement of the off the shelf hardware. The Cisco UCS is managed by VMWare s Hypervisor (ESXi 5.0) and management solutions. TeraVM is deployed as an Open Virtual Appliance (.ova) file. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 10

11 As already mentioned TeraVM is equally used as a virtualized test solution to test entities in the cloud, as well as testing physical environments. In order to prove performance of the TeraVM package, the case study connects to an actual physical environment. Client Side Secure VPN with App data request Server Side App data Response Figure 7 : Shown above is a distributed TeraVM IP test solution implemented on a Cisco UCS. In the example test configuration the test platform acts as both the VPN clients on the outside of the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) plus TeraVM emulates the HTTP servers on the inside of the ASA. The test harness is connected to the ASA via a Nexus switch. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 11

12 Shown in the ESXi configuration window below is the virtual machine layout of the packet generating resources. In TeraVM the distributed packet generating resources are managed via a single controller which is accessed via Java GUI client or automation window. Figure 8 : In VMWare the Virtual machines are associated with a virtual test interface card. Each test card has a number of virtual port interfaces. The virtual test ports are connected via the vswitch with dedicated Network Interface Cards in order to pass traffic to the outside world. To demonstrate scale performance with stateful traffic flows, TeraVM emulates both secure and unsecure traffic flows. The UCS/TeraVM configuration is connected to a physical device, a Cisco ASA. On the outside the emulated clients will establish SSL VPN enabled sessions, using AES-256 encryption. On the inside ports of the Cisco ASA, the TeraVM is used to emulate the HTTP application server. The test case uses the TeraVM emulated endpoints (outside) to request a high rate of VPN tunnel sessions, each emulated endpoint will then generate a HTTP 'Get' request in order to load the secure tunnel with stateful traffic Performance per UCS TeraVM running on a single 1u UCS environment can emulate VPN clients accepting 3Gbps of stateful encrypted traffic flows plus emulate the server side of 2.8Gbps of stateful traffic. In total a single UCS can process 5.8Gbps of mixed secure and unsecure traffic flows. TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 12

13 5. Conclusion TeraVM represents a new era in IP Testing. By combining Shenick s many years of experience in IP testing, advances in Virtualization and Moore s Law; IP testing is no longer bottlenecked by proprietary hardware solutions. TeraVM is the virtualization package for diversifeye, TeraVM retains 100% of the capability, functionality and feature set of the mature diversifeye test technology. Shenick is leveraging the power of virtualization in order to gain performance enhancements from the next generation of processors and servers. Harnessing the power of virtualization enables Shenick to scale to hundreds of gigabits of stateful application flows. This highly scaled traffic emulation combined with Shenick's award winning, industry proven per flow test solution architecture, provides the granularity necessary to ensure QoS for massively scaled environments. Shenick s virtualized enabled IP test solutions, enables service providers and network equipment vendors to quickly deploy a test facility, using off the shelf hardware, to test both next generation cloud infrastructure and physical devices. The flexibility of the solution allows users to re-deploy hardware for other uses once testing is complete. A significant benefit of TeraVM is the flexibility to adjust individual flow parameters per emulated TCP/UDP connection including the application level, in order to define accurate limitations of performance in the massively scaled environment. TeraVM may be used on any third party hardware and has been ported to all major Hypervisors - ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM, Xen. Benefits of TeraVM: Extreme Scalability ramp tests from a few Gigabits to Terabits. Multi-Hypervisor enabled - ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM, Xen. Use Low Cost Hardware Off the shelf components, minimal memory requirements. Reuse of Hardware elastically scale tests, when hardware not in use re-deploy elsewhere. Functionality Retains 100% of the capability of diversifeye Versatile Test cloud entities or test physical platforms TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 13

14 Shenick Network Systems North America: 533 Airport Boulevard, Burlingame, CA 94010, USA t: Ireland: Brook House, Corrig Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Ireland t: Regional Support Contact Details - Americas: amer-support@shenick.com Asia Pacific: apac-support@shenick.com Europe, Middle East & Africa: emea-support@shenick.com 2012 Shenick Network Systems Limited. All rights reserved, subject to change without notice. The material contained in this document is for general information purposes only and does not constitute technical or professional advice. diversifeye and serviceye are trademarks of Shenick Network Systems. ESXi VMWare is a trademark of VMWare, Hyper-V is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation, Xen is a trademark of Citrix. Cisco Logo is a trademark of Cisco Systems. All other names are trademarks of their respective owners and hereby acknowledged. Rev: 0v TeraVM Terabit Tester Page 14