A Visual Guide to Off-Box Network & IO Virtualization in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Why it matters ...

The focus of this article is to simplistically and visually explain Off-Box I/O Virtualization and the role it plays in the performance of Cloud Workloads.

Before we jump into Off-Box IO Virtualization and it's benefits, we will also explore the problems of Gen 1.0 Cloud Providers and what sets Oracle Cloud Infrastructure apart.

Why does this happen ?

Because Gen 1.0 Clouds use traditional Network & IO Virtualization techniques that was sufficient to satisfy Single Tenant, On-Premise Virtualization Needs

What exactly is the problem with Gen 1.0 Network & I/O Virtualization Systems?

Problem 1: Inefficiencies in virtualizing Storage and Network 

The major issue with Virtualizing Storage and Network is that in almost all the cases, we never get to utilize the actual capability/capacity of the underlying hardware. We call this bare-metal performance/ near-line throughput.

The sum of parts is way less than the whole

The Hypervisor has more overheads in sharing storage and network resources amongst VMs than Compute or Memory.

Problem 2: Dealing with Multi-Tenancy 

In your data center, in your premise, you have absolute control over how any VM gets to run and you can enforce good behavior

Gen 1.0 cloud vendors use a virtualization technique from the On-Premise Ages to share resources amongst multiple tenants in the cloud (Inefficient Resource Sharing ).

What's worse is you don't have a say on how some other tenant runs, neither do you have the levers to tune the Hypervisor.

What you don't know can hurt you !

Which is precisely why none of the Gen 1.0 Cloud Providers provide Performance SLAs

How does Off-Box Network & I/O Virtualization Solve this problem

Assembly lines were efficient and revolutionary because they allowed for hyperspecialization.

Performance: Everyone concurs and agrees that Networking is a specialized function and needs hardware/silicon to accelerate it. 

Flexibility: Programmable Silicon that can operate seamlessly with a virtualization environment 

So Smart-NIC accelerated SR-IOV systems were born.

SR- IOV : Single Root I/O Virtualization 
( To understand Acronym ... read On )

What If ,

The Hypervisor does what it is Good at

CPU And Memory Virtualization , and move out of the Network & I/O path

and let the SmartNIC do what it is good at

Packet Switching and Network Virtualization.

Why is this Consequential

Okay what's in it for me

1. You get Industry-first Performance SLA's because of better Design

1. You get Bare Metal Servers where you are the only tenant
2. Even with Virtual machines you exactly know what you are signing up for

Here are some other amazing things that Gen 2.0 Oracle Cloud Infrastructure can offer due to better design

P.S : I am writing another post focussing on how Off-Box IO Virtualization with SmartNICs give better isolation and security in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure than all other Gen 1.0 Cloud.

Leave your thoughts and comments below. Thank you!