Analysis of Network Latency in Virtualized Environments

Abstract

Virtualization is central to cloud computing systems. It abstracts computing resources to be shared among multiple virtual machines (VMs) that can be easily managed to run multiple applications and services. To benefit from the advantages of cloud computing, and to cope with increasing traffic demands, telecom operators have adopted cloud computing. Telecom services and applications are, however, characterized by real- time responsiveness, strict end-to-end latency, and high reliability. Due to the inherent overhead of virtualization, the network performance of applications and services can be degraded. To improve the performance of emerging applications and services that demand stringent end-to-end latency, and to understand the network performance bottleneck of virtualization, a comprehensive performance measurement and analysis is required. To this end, we conducted controlled and detailed experiments to understand the impact of virtualization on end-to-end latency and the performance of transport protocols in a virtualized environment. We also provide a packet delay breakdown in the virtualization layer which helps in the optimization of hypervisor components. Our experimental results indicate that the end-to-end latency and packet delay in the virtualization layer are increased with co-located VMs.