KOMon — Kernel-based Online Monitoring of VNF Packet Processing Times

The ongoing softwarization of networks comes with several advantages like cost efficiency, increased scalability, and better flexibility by migrating functionality from static, application specific hardware appliances to flexible, lightweight software solutions running on COTS hardware. In order to maximize the performance gains promised by the NFV paradigm, several challenges remain to be solved. In this work, we address the accurate acquisition of key performance indicators, specifically the packet processing time, of softwarized network functions. To this end, we present KOMon, a Kernel-based online monitoring tool to reliably measure the packet processing times of network functions through lightweight in-stack monitoring. We show that KOMon reports highly accurate values in different scenarios and discuss the applicability of the proposed mechanism for different use cases.