Multicore Packet Processing Forum

Posts Tagged ‘packet processing’

By Eric Carmes – 6WIND Founder and CEO

This post brings to a conclusion for the series of posts about packet processing and virtualization.

Two previous posts about Virtualized Packet Processing (option 1) and Non-Virtualized Packet Processing (option 2) have summarized two options for integrating the 6WINDGate packet processing software in virtualized environments.

According to our customer’s feedbacks, the main criteria for selecting the most suitable approach are:

• System requirements that should drive the choice between option 1 and 2. For instance, virtualized cloud appliances benefit from option 1 because it provides a straightforward solution for reusing existing software and a convenient way to easily load, unload and configure the virtualized appliances in line with customer needs.
• Performance is the second main criterion. The I/O performance achieved by option 1 and option 2 (if no additional hardware is used) will be similar. When used with additional hardware, option 2 is suitable for high-end applications in which the cost of the additional hardware is acceptable.
• Migration constraints: Some cloud systems will experience large performance differences between option 1 and option 2 depending on the existing deployed servers. It’s very important to support both options to minimize the impact of the integration of high performance packet processing within existing architectures.

I’m looking forward to receiving your comments about this series of posts.