New Architectures and Mechanisms for the Network Subsystem in Virtualized Servers

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dc.contributor.advisorCox, Alan L.en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberRixner, Scotten_US
dc.contributor.committeeMemberVarman, Peter J.en_US
dc.creatorRam, Kaushik Kumaren_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-07-24T19:45:42Zen_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-07-24T19:45:46Zen_US
dc.date.available2013-07-24T19:45:42Zen_US
dc.date.available2013-07-24T19:45:46Zen_US
dc.date.created2012-12en_US
dc.date.issued2013-07-24en_US
dc.date.submittedDecember 2012en_US
dc.date.updated2013-07-24T19:45:46Zen_US
dc.description.abstractMachine virtualization has become a cornerstone of modern datacenters. It enables server consolidation as a means to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. The communication endpoints within the datacenter are now virtual machines (VMs), not physical servers. Consequently, the datacenter network now extends into the server and last hop switching occurs inside the server. Today, thanks to increasing core counts on processors, server VM densities are on the rise. This trend is placing enormous pressure on the network I/O subsystem and the last hop virtual switch to support efficient communication, both internal and external to the server. But the current state-of-the-art solutions fall short of these requirements. This thesis presents new architectures and mechanisms for the network subsystem in virtualized servers to build efficient virtualization platforms. Specifically, there are three primary contributions in this thesis. First, it presents a new mechanism to reduce memory sharing overheads in driver domain-based I/O architectures. The key idea is to enable a guest operating system to reuse its I/O buffers that are shared with a driver domain. Second, it describes Hyper-Switch, a highly streamlined, efficient, and scalable software-based virtual switching architecture, specifically for hypervisors that support driver domains. The Hyper-Switch combines the best of the existing architectures by hosting the device drivers in a driver domain to isolate any faults and placing the virtual switch in the hypervisor to perform efficient packet switching. Further, the Hyper-Switch implements several optimizations, such as virtual machine state-aware batching, preemptive copying, and dynamic offloading of packet processing to idle CPU cores, to enable efficient packet processing, better utilization of the available CPU resources, and higher concurrency. This architecture eliminates the memory sharing overheads associated with driver domains. Third, this thesis proposes an alternate virtual switching architecture, called sNICh, which explores the idea of server/switch integration. The sNICh is a combined network interface card (NIC) and datacenter switching accelerator. This takes the Hyper-Switch architecture one step further. It offloads the data plane of the switch to the network device, eliminating driver domains entirely.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationRam, Kaushik Kumar. "New Architectures and Mechanisms for the Network Subsystem in Virtualized Servers." (2013) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/71683">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/71683</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.slug123456789/ETD-2012-12-258en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/71683en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectI/O Virtualizationen_US
dc.subjectVirtual switchingen_US
dc.subjectNetwork architectureen_US
dc.subjectSystem performanceen_US
dc.subjectHypervisorsen_US
dc.subjectDatacenter networkingen_US
dc.titleNew Architectures and Mechanisms for the Network Subsystem in Virtualized Serversen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentComputer Scienceen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineEngineeringen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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