Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) Mode

The following platforms support AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router-DPDK mode.

The AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router DPDK mode depends on the features available on CPUs, and AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router VMs must be deployed on only certain types of server platforms to meet performance benchmarks. The ideal server configuration should have the following parameters:

• • Disable Hyper-threading for best performance.
  • Non-NUMA or ensure AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router receives resources from a single NUMA node.
  • Disable power saving and frequency scaling features in BIOS/Firmware/Hypervisor.

• High-speed hard drive (~7200 RPM) or SSD and minimum 8 GB of free disk space.

• Reserve at least 4 GB of RAM for AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router.
  • 4 GB RAM only supports 3 VRFs.
  • Requires 8 GB to support up to 8 VRFs.
  • Server should have more memory for use by hypervisor software.

In addition to the server requirements, you must configure the hypervisor to provide memory and CPU reservation for AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router VMs to ensure optimum performance. In addition, map each vCPU used by the AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router VM to a unique physical CPU core. These configurations and settings depend on the type of hypervisor used, and the information usually documented in the configuration guide(s) provided by the hypervisor vendor.

By default, all the new AWE-7200R and CloudEOS router installations from the hypervisor image or public cloud run in high-performance DPDK mode beginning withCloudEOS 4.23.0FX and AWE-7200R Series routers.

To perform following actions, ensure the system has a configuration to allow bash access, at least temporarily, and then perform the following actions on AWE-7200R and CloudEOS:

router# show platform sfe licensing

Licensing Information
---------------------
 License TC created: no
 Number of throttled interfaces: 0

Use a text editor to modify this file by commenting out MODE=linux and un-commenting MODE=sfe. After modification, verify the changes and then save the file. The file should look like the following example.

router# show platform sfe licensing

Licensing Information
---------------------
License TC created: yes
Number of throttled interfaces: 1
Interfaces throttled:
Ethernet1: 80 Mbps"

After reloading, the AWE-7200R and CloudEOS boot up in DPDK mode.

Since DPDK runs in poll mode, it always displays CPU utilization at 100% utilized. To verify this, use the sfe platform command and locate theCPU percentage used for packet processing.

 
[switch]$ curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/dynamic/instance-identity/document
{
  "accountId" : "083837402522",
  "architecture" : "x86_64",
  "availabilityZone" : "us-west-1b",
  "billingProducts" : null,
  "devpayProductCodes" : null,
  "marketplaceProductCodes" : [ "cdcwmm26cap8fqlnkwuqte405" ],
  "imageId" : "ami-017900c328c2edfbe",
  "instanceId" : "i-058ebba29bd475e8b",
  "instanceType" : "c5.xlarge",
  "kernelId" : null,
  "pendingTime" : "2020-05-01T06:53:42Z",
  "privateIp" : "11.0.4.101",
  "ramdiskId" : null,
  "region" : "us-west-1",
  "version" : "2017-09-30"
}

In addition, CloudEOS records a syslog message if the CPU utilization spikes over 80% for 60 seconds while performing packet processing.

[switch]$ curl -H Metadata:true "http://169.254.169.254/metadata/instance/compute?api-version=2017-08-01"
{"location":"westus",
"name":"adhip-test",
"offer":"cloudeos-router-payg",
"osType":"Linux",
"placementGroupId":"",
"platformFaultDomain":"0",
"platformUpdateDomain":"0",
"publisher":"arista-networks",
"resourceGroupName":"adhip2",
"sku":"cloudeos-4_23_0-payg",
"subscriptionId":"ba0583bb-4130-4d7b-bfe4-0c7597857323",
"tags":"","version":"4.23.0",
"vmId":"c23a7526-44c5-43af-bcf5-8b2419105393",
"vmSize":"Standard_D4_v3"
$

To find information about packet forwarding agents, check the following log file.

router# bash curl http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/licenses/0/id -H "Metadata-Flavor:Google"
3403635045915687054

In case of errors, the system generates another log file accessed using the following command.

cloudeos-router-payg-router-vm# ip host metadata.google.internal 169.254.169.254
cloudeos-router-payg-router-vmr# ip route 169.254.169.254/32 Ethernet1 default_vpc_router

In addition to the log files, the commands, syslog and show-tech, provide valuable sources of troubleshooting information.