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The DPDK Summit 2023 was a showcase of technical breakthroughs and forward-looking discussions in the field of high-performance networking. The summit featured a range of presentations, each diving into new developments and future directions. Here are the highlights from the key talks.

Keynote Session: Welcome & Opening Remarks – Rashid Khan, Senior Director, Software Engineering RHEL Networking, Red Hat

Rashid commenced with a nod to the global audience, addressing the challenges and breakthroughs in DPDK’s trajectory. He extended his gratitude toward the contributions made by the DPDK Board of Governors, the project’s contributors, and the sponsors who fuel the initiative’s progress.

Augmenting P4 Software Pipelines with Accelerators. The IPsec Use-case – Cristian Dumitrescu & Radu Nicolau, Intel Corporation

Intel’s Cristian Dumitrescu and Radu Nicolau presented a method to boost P4 software pipelines using standalone software modules called extern blocks. Focusing on IPsec, they demonstrated how to employ DPDK libraries to add acceleration to P4 pipelines, enabling them to handle IPsec processing in parallel with regular pipeline functions. The IPsec block, working as an accelerator, is seamlessly integrated using packet queues and supports multiple security protocols without needing changes to the P4 pipeline code.

Leveraging DPDK for P4 SmartNIC Applications – ESnet

Sean Cummings and Chris Cummings from ESnet discussed the use of DPDK as an offload engine for P4 SmartNIC applications. They highlighted how DPDK can manage complex packet translations that P4 cannot, using their experience with a SIIT-DC NAT64 translator on FPGAs as a case study.

OVS and Offloading Frameworks Comparison – Red Hat

David Marchand from Red Hat analyzed tc-flower and rte_flow, two frameworks used for offloading complex packet processing to NICs within OVS. He provided insights into the performance and integration status of rte_flow compared to tc-flower.

rte_flow Offload to Virtio – Red Hat

Christophe Fontaine from Red Hat presented the application of rte_flow to virtual interfaces, explaining the benefits and the performance gains achievable, which elevate virtio’s capabilities from 4Mpps to line-rate.

VDUSE Performance Check – Red Hat

Maxime Coquelin from Red Hat compared the performance of VDUSE with other solutions like Vhost-user and VETH pairs in conjunction with Virtio-vDPA, building upon the previous year’s introduction to VDUSE’s architecture.

Cloud Native DPDK vCSR for 5G – Juniper Networks

Kiran KN and Shailender Sharma from Juniper Networks introduced a cloud-native virtual DPDK Cell Site Router (vCSR) designed for the 5G ORAN ecosystem. They detailed its architecture, integration with Juniper’s control plane, and its role in enhancing connectivity in a disaggregated RAN setup.

5G RAN and UPF Acceleration – NVIDIA

Elena Agostini and Gal Cohen from NVIDIA spoke about accelerating 5G RAN and UPF. Elena focused on the NVIDIA Aerial SDK’s use of DPDK for building a 5G software stack, while Gal discussed the benefits of using SmartNICs and DPUs for UPF, highlighting the scalability and performance enhancements provided by DPDK.

ABI Versioning in DPDK – AMD

Ferruh Yigit from AMD provided a thorough explanation of ABI versioning in DPDK. He discussed the application of ABI versioning, a topic that has seen limited use and understanding, offering a step-by-step guide and examples for its implementation in DPDK.

Advancing CI Pipelines: Insights by Aaron Conole of Red Hat, Inc.

Aaron Conole’s session revolved around the evolution of CI pipelines within the DPDK ecosystem. He took the audience through a brief history of CI infrastructure development and outlined the current landscape. The crux of his talk was the envisioned transformation of the CI pipeline into a decisive factor for patch acceptance. 

Using Sharable Mempools for Zero-copy Sharing Between Processes – Bruce Richardson, Intel 

This talk addresses the challenges in high-performance packet processing when multiple DPDK processes need to work cooperatively. Normally, splitting a workload across independent processes involves standard inter-process communication (IPC) methods that can be inefficient, as they usually require multiple data copies and complex descriptor manipulations. 

DPDK and Confidential Computing: A Dive by Zhifei Yang from TikTok

Zhifei Yang presented an intriguing session on integrating DPDK with Confidential Virtual Machines, a critical aspect of cloud security. He emphasized how cutting-edge technologies like AMD SEV, Intel TDX, and ARM CCA are empowering users to deploy services in the cloud without fully trusting the cloud provider. Yang pinpointed the unique challenges of running high-performance DPDK applications within CVMs, from the need for shared hugepages to the current suboptimal state of DPDK’s memory management in such environments.

Introducing Advanced IOMMU and VFIO in DPDK

Chenbo Xia and Yahui Cao from Intel led the conversation with an introduction to the integration of new VFIO and IOMMU frameworks within DPDK. The implementation of IOMMUFD in the Linux Kernel calls for DPDK’s alignment to utilize features like PASID/SSID and DMA Page Fault handling. The new VFIO Chardev framework also opens doors to more efficient VFIO device management, promising to refine DPDK’s hardware interactions.

Integrating Arm64 SVE with DPDK

Ruifeng Wang of Arm China talked about the integration of the Arm64 Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) into the DPDK libraries. This integration promises to enhance computational efficiency for network tasks on Arm architectures, leveraging the SIMD feature.

Challenges in DPDK-Based Application Development

Vivek Gupta from Benison Technologies shared insights into the complexities encountered in the development of various DPDK-based applications. He stressed the need for standard solutions that could ease the process of developing and migrating applications to DPDK.

Rust Meets DPDK: Aiming for Security and Performance

Harry van Haaren from Intel suggested leveraging Rust for DPDK functionalities to combine performance with safety. The use of Rust aims to prevent API misuse and provide an easier configuration experience.

Enhancing DPDK RAS through Application Engagement

Ajit Khaparde of Broadcom discussed improving the RAS features in DPDK by involving applications in the error recovery process. Such involvement is crucial for ensuring systems remain robust and reliable.

Bytebricks: A Leap Forward in VPN Frameworks

William Lam from TikTok introduced Bytebricks, a graph library-powered VPN framework that leverages DPDK for superior performance. The framework shows how to manage timers in a scalable way across multiple cores, with a focus on the implementation of the Wireguard protocol.

Sketch-Based Algorithms for Efficient Network Telemetry

Intel’s Leyi Rong talked about sketch-based algorithms in DPDK for network telemetry, which are essential for detecting large network flows while being memory-efficient and computationally effective.

DPDK Graph Library: An In-Depth Look

Jerin Jacob from Marvell provided a detailed overview of the DPDK graph library’s design and implementation, a feature that has enhanced DPDK’s data processing capabilities since its release.

Addressing Performance Issues in DPDK Distribution

Sivaprasad Tummala from AMD addressed the performance challenges faced with DPDK’s distribution packaging, which must cater to various CPU architectures, often at the cost of optimal performance.

dperf: Revolutionizing Network Load Testing

Lastly, Jianzhang Peng from Timeresearch showcased dperf, a network load tester based on DPDK that significantly outperforms traditional testing methods in performance, convenience, and cost.

DTS Working Group Update – Honnappa Nagarahalli, Arm; Juraj Linkes, Pantheon Technologies & Patrick Robb, UNH IOL Lab

The DTS Working Group update was an opportunity to understand the work that had been accomplished, the challenges that had been faced, and what lay ahead. Honnappa Nagarahalli, Juraj Linkes, and Patrick Robb discussed the tangible outcomes of their collaborations, the intricacies of their current projects, and provided a roadmap for future releases. Their talk delved into technical details and discussed how the group’s work aligned with the broader goals of DPDK.

DPI-enhanced DPDK for 5G User Plane – Tobias Roeder, ipoque, a Rohde & Schwarz company

Tobias Roeder’s presentation on DPI-enhanced DPDK threw a spotlight on the intersection of DPDK and 5G technologies. He delved into how deep packet inspection (DPI) could augment DPDK’s capabilities, particularly for the user plane in 5G networks. He talked about the successful application cases, performance benchmarks, and how the integration of DPI with DPDK features like rte_flow and RSS was contributing to the 5G revolution. His presentation rounded out with practical insights from deployments and simulations that mirrored current 5G user behaviors, providing attendees with a grounded perspective on the technology’s current and future impacts.

Closing Remarks – Thomas Monjalon, DPDK Maintainer, NVIDIA

As the summit came to a close, it was essential to reflect on the wealth of knowledge and innovations that had been shared. Thomas Monjalon, a seasoned DPDK maintainer from NVIDIA, concluded the event with his remarks. He recapped the summit’s highlights, underscored the importance of the community’s contributions, and charted the course for the future development of DPDK. He focused on the collaborative spirit that has been a hallmark of DPDK’s success and acknowledged the emerging trends and technologies that would shape its evolution.

Introduction

The open-source community thrives on collective efforts to improve and augment software products. In this post, we take a closer look at the operations of the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) community lab and its contributions towards testing and refining the DPDK software project.

DPDK, a set of libraries and drivers for fast packet processing, is embraced by major technology players including Red Hat, NVIDIA, Intel, Arm, and more. However, a crucial element that bolsters the confidence of these companies in DPDK is the dedicated testing Community Lab hosted by the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab. Their primary service to the DPDK community involves rigorous testing of code contributions and providing valuable feedback to the developers.

The DPDK Community Lab: An Overview

Initiated around 2017-2018, the DPDK Community Lab was conceived to ensure that incoming code contributions didn’t introduce performance regressions across various vendor channels. Initial testing focused primarily on performance testing and gradually expanded to encompass a broader range of checks.

The lab executes multiple categories of tests on incoming source code contributions, including performance, functional testing, unit and compile testing, and Application Binary Interface (ABI) stability checks. ABI testing provides stability for development across different versions within that cycle. For instance, releases 22.11, 23.03, and 23.07 are/will be ABI compliant with the current major abi version. A new major ABI version will be released with the 23.11 LTS release which may break ABI compliance with releases from the current cycle. But then the subsequent 24.03 and 24.07 releases will be ABI compliant to the ABI major version introduced at 23.11.

The Testing Suite: A Developer’s First Encounter

One of the first steps for developers contributing to DPDK involves navigating the project’s mailing list, where they submit patches for review. Any code change or patch is subsequently passed through the community lab’s testing suite. Should a patch trigger an issue or fail the automated tests, the developers are notified through email as well as the ‘patchwork’ system, an automated web portal that tracks incoming source code patches.

Understanding the testing suite is an essential part of a new developer’s journey. Once developers familiarize themselves with the codebase, the next stage involves learning how to submit patches and navigate the unique mailing list patch archive approach, which can initially be somewhat alien to developers more accustomed to using the major code collaboration and version control tools like GitLab, GitHub, or Bitbucket’s direct patch submission process.

Extending Test Coverage: Evolution Over Time

Over the years, the DPDK community lab has significantly extended its test coverage, adding new types of hardware, architectures, and operating systems to its testing suite. In 2022 and 2023 the Community Lab has worked to update our internal container build system to make it OCI compliant. That has allowed the lab to seamlessly offer the same test coverage for arm64 platforms which was previously offered only for x86 systems. The lab has also made other expansions for ARM, like adding arm32 unit tests to CI runs, and is proud to say there is now parity between x86 and ARM test coverage in the Community Lab.

The lab operates on the principle of relative comparison; it does not publish absolute performance numbers. Instead, it compares the performance of a patch against the mainline version of the codebase. This approach ensures that no individual patch introduces significant performance degradation, which could negatively impact end users and integrators.

Policies and Test Cases

The lab derives its test cases from several sources, primarily the DPDK core developer community and the DPDK Test Suite (DTS). The latter focuses on functional testing and performance testing of the DPDK system as a whole, while the former is focused on individual building blocks within the codebase. There’s an ongoing effort within the community to merge DTS into the DPDK main repository to align its release cycles more closely with those of DPDK itself.

The third category of tests comes from purpose-built sample applications, such as the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) test cases. These cases test the implementation of cryptographic algorithms built into DPDK. With recent advancements from NIST, the lab has transitioned from a manual vector request and testing approach to an automated API-driven process, which greatly facilitates the automation of cryptographic implementation testing.

Testing Methods

At the heart of the lab’s testing approach are three key methods: unit testing, functional testing, and performance testing. Each of these contributes a different perspective, ensuring a comprehensive review of the application. For instance, unit testing focuses on the smallest parts of the application, while functional and performance testing assess the application’s functionality and speed under various conditions.

Compiling is an important step in the process, which they undertake before running ABI (Application Binary Interface) tests. Ensuring that the interface remains consistent is vital, as it confirms the binary formatting of the interfaces isn’t altered. This ensures that applications depending on the DPDK stack don’t face unexpected failures.

The lab’s Continuous Integration (CI) platform, Jenkins, is instrumental in organizing the testing workflow. A graphical representation of our Jenkins Testing Tree can offer a clearer understanding of the testing process, starting from patch application, branching into various forms of testing, and then cycling back for reiteration.

As patches flow into the system, Jenkins starts the process by applying these patches to the DPDK Mainline. If the patches apply correctly, the updated DPDK enters the testing pipeline. The system then breaks down into functional and performance testing using the DPDK Test Suite (DTS) across different servers and network interface cards (NICs). Concurrently, ABI testing ensures consistency at the driver kernel level. Simultaneously, they conduct compile testing on both x86 and ARM architectures. Finally, DPDK’s inbuilt unit tests confirm the robustness of each small part of the software.

Expanding Partner Coverage

In terms of expanding the lab’s test coverage and partnering with member companies, they have historically relied on organic growth within the community. However, recent efforts have focused on DPDK Gold members, targeting the integration of their latest generation hardware into the Lab’s testing suite. This direct engagement ensures their systems are among the first tested by DPDK’s community infrastructure, providing a clear benefit for their participation.

The DPDK Community lab does not eliminate the need for in-house testing, instead it complements it, providing an additional layer of assurance and reliability. Being an open-source project, the lab’s testing capabilities offer wide-ranging coverage, ensuring that the project is robust and dependable. The ongoing expansion of the lab test coverage is testament to the DPDK community’s commitment to delivering consistently robust code. 

Learn more about the DPDK Community Lab testing and for how to get involved visit: https://lab.dpdk.org/results/dashboard/about/

We’re excited to share with you the news that a new major release, DPDK 23.07, is now available for download. Here, we will take a detailed look at what this release brings to the table, the contributors behind it, and what lies ahead for the DPDK community.

Unpacking DPDK 23.07

Despite the overall number of commits being modest at 1028, this release signifies a considerable amount of work as indicated by the number of changed lines: 1554 files were altered with 157260 insertions and 58411 deletions. This endeavor was not a small feat as it involved 178 authors who each put their expertise and dedication into making this release possible.

Community Engagement and Contributions

Our doors are always open for more hands, and we encourage anyone willing to contribute in various stages of the process. There is a wide array of areas you can help in, such as testing, review, or merge tasks. Every contribution, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to our common goal.

It’s worth noting that there is no plan to start a maintenance branch for 23.07. However, this new version is ABI-compatible with 22.11 and 23.03, which means it will interact seamlessly with the binaries built with these older versions.

Notable New Features in DPDK 23.07

The new release brings forth several enhancements and features, promising an improved experience for users. 

Some of these additions include the AMD CDX bus, PCI MMIO read/write capabilities. 

It includes new flow patterns (Tx queue, Infiniband BTH), new flow actions (push/remove IPv6 extension) and also introduces an indirect flow rule list.

As well as a vhost interrupt callback, more ShangMi crypto algorithms, and a PDCP library.

We have also seen the removal of the LiquidIO driver, a move that aligns with the DPDK’s commitment to providing a refined and optimized toolkit. 

Finally, this release includes a DMA device performance test application and there are some progress with the new DTS: it is able to run a basic UDP test now, improving utilities for developers.

More details about these changes can be found in the release notes here.

A Big Welcome to New Contributors

The DPDK community is growing, and 23.07 has seen contributions from 37 new contributors including authors, reviewers, and testers. We extend our warm welcome to all of them and appreciate their invaluable contributions.

DPDK 23.07 was not a solo effort. The release has seen contributions from multiple organizations, the leading contributors being:

Intel (252 commits), Marvell (225 commits), and NVIDIA (127 commits), among others. This community effort underlines the collaborative spirit of the DPDK project.

Reviewer Acknowledgements

A special thank you goes to all those who took up the often under appreciated task of reviewing other peoples work. Your efforts have been instrumental in maintaining the high quality of DPDK code. The top non-PMD reviewers, based on Reviewed-by and Acked-by tags, include Ferruh Yigit, Akhil Goyal, David Marchand, Chenbo Xia, and Bruce Richardson.

Looking Ahead

However, there is always room for improvement. There are currently more than 300 open bugs in our Bugzilla, and the number of comments in half-done work (like TODO, FIXME) is on the rise. This highlights a need for increased efforts in code cleanup.

Looking to the future, the next version, 23.11, is slated for release in November. We encourage developers to submit new features for this version within the next two weeks. You can find the next milestones here.

Mark Your Calendars

Lastly, don’t forget to register for the upcoming DPDK Summit in September. It’s a great opportunity to connect with the DPDK community, learn about the latest developments, and share your experiences.

A big thank you to everyone for your continuous contributions to DPDK. See you in Dublin for the DPDK Summit!

Get the 23.07 release here.