Ultra-low Latency NFV Services Using DPDK

This paper introduces UDPDK, a novel middleware easing the implementation of ultra-low-latency communications among software components, based on the well-known DPDK framework, by which one can bypass the in-kernel networking stack of the operating system, with direct access to the networking devices from the application. DPDK functionality is exposed to applications with an API resembling the standard POSIX primitives for UDP. The usefulness of UDPDK is demonstrated by integrating it in the OpenAirInterface open-source software stack for RAN communications, modifying its F1-U component to use UDPDK primitives. Experimental results on an LTE test-bed show a reduction of 69% of the end-to-end latency when using the new primitives. The achieved results are of foremost importance for the realization of ultra-low-latency communications in future 5G scenarios.