Managing Network Function (NF) service chains requires careful system resource management. We propose NFVnice , a user space NF scheduling and service chain management framework to provide fair, efficient and dynamic resource scheduling capabilities on Network Function Virtualization (NFV) platforms. The NFVnice framework monitors load on a service chain at high frequency (1000Hz) and employs backpressure to shed load early in the service chain, thereby preventing wasted work. Borrowing concepts such as rate proportional scheduling from hardware packet schedulers, CPU shares are computed by accounting for heterogeneous packet processing costs of NFs, I/O, and traffic arrival characteristics. By leveraging cgroups, a user space process scheduling abstraction exposed by the operating system, NFVnice is capable of controlling when network functions should be scheduled. NFVnice improves NF performance by complementing the capabilities of the OS scheduler but without requiring changes to the OS’s scheduling mechanisms. Our controlled experiments show that NFVnice provides the appropriate rate-cost proportional fair share of CPU to NFs and significantly improves NF performance (throughput and latency) by reducing wasted work across an NF chain, compared to using the default OS scheduler. NFVnice achieves this even for heterogeneous NFs with vastly different computational costs and for heterogeneous workloads.

中文翻译：

---

NFVnice：NFV服务链的动态背压和计划

管理网络功能（NF）服务链需要仔细的系统资源管理。我们建议NFVnice 用户空间NF调度和服务链管理框架，可在网络功能虚拟化（NFV）平台上提供公平，高效和动态的资源调度功能。NFVnice框架以高频率（1000Hz）监视服务链上的负载，并采用背压在服务链中尽早减轻负载，从而避免浪费工作。借用了诸如硬件分组调度程序中的速率比例调度，CPU份额之类的概念，方法是考虑到NF，I / O和流量到达特性的异构分组处理成本。通过利用cgroup（操作系统公开的用户空间进程调度抽象），NFVnice能够控制何时应调度网络功能。NFVnice通过补充OS调度程序的功能来提高NF性能，但无需更改OS的调度机制。我们的受控实验表明，与使用默认的OS调度程序相比，NFVnice通过减少NF链上的浪费工作，为NF提供了适当的比率成本CPU比率给NF，并显着提高了NF性能（吞吐量和延迟）。NFVnice甚至针对计算成本差异很大的异构NF和异构工作负载也实现了这一目标。与使用默认操作系统调度程序相比。NFVnice甚至针对计算成本差异很大的异构NF和异构工作负载也实现了这一目标。与使用默认操作系统调度程序相比。NFVnice甚至针对计算成本差异很大的异构NF和异构工作负载也实现了这一目标。