[Xen-users] DomU - network performance and possibilities (HVM, PVM, pci-passthru, stubdom, PV on HVM...)

[Matej Zary <zary@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,


I want to (need to) do a network performance analysis/benchmark of
various Xen networking solutions (analyzing the pros and cons of network
infrastructure virtualisation) on top of Xen 4.0. 

So far I have Xen 4.0 running with various Dom0 kernels (git stable
2.6.32.11, git stable 2.6.31.13, mercurial 2.6.18.8, Debian distribution
2.6.26-2xen...want try some newer forward ported Xen kernel too).

AFAIK, there are these possibilities for DomU "architecture".    

1. DomU as classic emulated HVM.
2. DomU as classic PVM (pv_ops kernel and Xen kernel)
3. DomU as classic emulated HVM with Xen PV drivers (don't know whether
these work with pv_ops Dom0, but for that case I have the 2.6.18.8 Xen
linux)
4. DomU as classic PVM with pass-thru PCI NICs
5. DomU as classic HVM with pass-thru PCI NICs (don't have IOMMU capable
HW :( )
6. DomU as HVM with stubdom (according to various papers, this should be
a bit faster than classic HVM DomU)
7. DomU as HVM with virtio drivers (is this possible in xen4.0?)



I'm interested in the latency and bandwidth performance in phys-DomU and
DomU-DomU scenarios (I have own tool for network latency benchmarking
and for bandwidth there's the Iperf :) ). Also I will try to experiment
a bit with the CPU pinning and schedulers in these scenarios.

Also would like to test and testbench OpenSwitch as linux-bridge
replacement (but I'm afraid I will not have time for this).

So my questions are:

1. Is possible to use VirtIO with XEN 4.0 (as another approach on the
PV-on-HVM)?
2. Is possible to use the Xen HVM DomU PV drivers (unmodified drivers?)
with pvops Dom0?
3. If you have some ideas or hints, I will be very thankful. :)


Regards

Matej

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