Accelerated virtual switching with programmable NICs for scalable data center networking

Abstract

Recently virtual switches in data center hosts have been employed to interconnect virtual machines (VMs) within data center networks. Such a virtual network layer, however, faces performance challenges when the number of VMs and the line rates scale up. Motivated by the performance and programmability of intelligent network interface cards (NICs), we propose to offload the virtual switching onto such programmable NICs (PNICs) to achieve scalable VM networking. We describe the design and advantages of a novel PNIC-oriented data center network architecture. We then present a prototype of a PNIC based virtual switch that supports virtual NICs, OpenFlow switching, clock synchronization and flow monitoring. We finally introduce an efficient packet buffering mechanism enabled by such PNICs and OpenFlow-capable top-of-rack switches for reducing the congestion on network fabric.