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    Epyc VM to VM networking slow

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    • olivierlambertO Offline
      olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
      last edited by olivierlambert

      Again, you need to understand: sending packets to another host is very different (since it's going to the NIC). So the Dom0 speed has nothing to do with what's happening behind the scene between regular guests on the same physical host.

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      • N Offline
        nicols @olivierlambert
        last edited by

        @olivierlambert said in Epyc VM to VM networking slow:

        I have a pretty large diff when having far more process iperf3 process, it's weird you don't 🤔 (eg I can reach 16G+ vs 8G on the same host with 14 iperf threads vs 1)

        is this 16gbit/sec between two VMs on same physical host?
        if yes, which HW is it ?

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        • olivierlambertO Offline
          olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
          last edited by

          Yes, between 2x VMs on the same host. Ryzen 5 7600.

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          • N Offline
            nicols @olivierlambert
            last edited by

            @olivierlambert said in Epyc VM to VM networking slow:

            Yes, between 2x VMs on the same host. Ryzen 5 7600.

            We did some more tests and BIOS tweaking.

            We are getting max. 5 Gbps VM to VM trafic on Linux.
            But, we also did tests with Windows OS, with multiple iperf threads we are able to achieve up to 18 Gbps VM to VM on same physical host.

            So, where is the catch?

            Anybody here with EPYC server willing to do some tests?

            Best Regards!

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            • olivierlambertO Offline
              olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
              last edited by

              You mean 2x Windows VMs (which versions?) on the same EPYC host running XCP-ng, you got 18G with multiple threads (how many?) vs Linux in the same configuration (which kernel/distro? same VM cores & memory?), right?

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              • N Offline
                nicols @olivierlambert
                last edited by

                @olivierlambert said in Epyc VM to VM networking slow:

                You mean 2x Windows VMs (which versions?) on the same EPYC host running XCP-ng, you got 18G with multiple threads (how many?) vs Linux in the same configuration (which kernel/distro? same VM cores & memory?), right?

                yes, 2 x win10 pro, on same host, 8-12 multiple threads vs debian 12, same cpu/memory configurations, also 8-12 multiple threads.

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                • olivierlambertO Offline
                  olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                  last edited by

                  Do you have tools and PV drivers installed in Windows? Which version of the tools?

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                  • N Offline
                    nicols @olivierlambert
                    last edited by

                    @olivierlambert said in Epyc VM to VM networking slow:

                    Do you have tools and PV drivers installed in Windows? Which version of the tools?

                    citrix vm tools 9.3.1 are instaleld

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                    • olivierlambertO Offline
                      olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                      last edited by olivierlambert

                      The different is really weird between Windows and Linux 🤔 In theory, you should have a similar result on your Linux VMs vs Windows for the network speed.

                      What is the template you are using for your Debian VMs?

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                      • J Offline
                        JamesG @olivierlambert
                        last edited by

                        I cited this performance problem on Epyc early this year when I was building a cluster for a company. I couldn't get any VM to VM performance, so SR-IOV to the rescue which getting that to work was a mess.

                        I've got Supermicro H12SSL boards with 7302p processors. I don't have all the memory slots populated so memory throughput isn't as good as it could be, but it sounds like other people are having a similar experience to me.

                        Currently I'm on the latest 8.3 patched. NICs are Mellanox ConnextX4-LX (not that they matter in guest to guest traffic).

                        That said...My nearly 12 year-old Xeon E3-1230v2 server crushes the Epyc in guest to guest traffic. Quick test:

                        Xeon E3-1230v2 iperf3 with 4 threads (Debian guests):
                        [SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 15.2 GBytes 13.1 Gbits/sec 0 sender
                        [SUM] 0.00-10.04 sec 15.2 GBytes 13.0 Gbits/sec receiver

                        Epyc 7302p iperf3 with 4 threads (Debian guests):
                        [SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 7.66 GBytes 6.58 Gbits/sec 870 sender
                        [SUM] 0.00-10.03 sec 7.65 GBytes 6.55 Gbits/sec receiver

                        Interesting to note the retries on the Epyc transfer.

                        These two CPU's have similar single-thread performance and similar clock-rate. All the C and P states on the Epyc systems have been tweaked.

                        Guest to Guest traffic is seemingly really impaired compared to the old Xeons.

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                        • olivierlambertO Offline
                          olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                          last edited by olivierlambert

                          @JamesG can you test between 2x Windows guest? (and/or between 2x BSD guests)

                          It's maybe a weird Linux thing 🤔 What's the kernel version used in your Debian?

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                          • N Offline
                            nicols @JamesG
                            last edited by

                            @JamesG said in Epyc VM to VM networking slow:

                            I've got Supermicro H12SSL boards with 7302p processors. I don't have all the memory slots populated so memory throughput isn't as good as it could be, but it sounds like other people are having a similar experience to me.

                            That said...My nearly 12 year-old Xeon E3-1230v2 server crushes the Epyc in guest to guest traffic. Quick test:

                            Guest to Guest traffic is seemingly really impaired compared to the old Xeons.

                            Finally someone with similar experience, i was starting to think i am a bit crazy 🙂

                            There was update of xen hypervisor today, i will do another test....

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                            • J Offline
                              JamesG @nicols
                              last edited by

                              Here's my thread from earlier this year:

                              https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/6916/tracking-down-poor-network-performance/11

                              Here's a referenced thread in that thread:

                              https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/5668/what-are-realistic-experienced-throughput-outcomes-for-internal-networks?_=1678067278938

                              I'd be curious how this works in VMWare.

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                              • J Offline
                                JamesG @olivierlambert
                                last edited by

                                @olivierlambert

                                I cloned a Win10 VM...Win10 to Win10, same performance as Debian.

                                This is most definitely something within the networking infrastructure of Xen.

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                                • olivierlambertO Offline
                                  olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                                  last edited by

                                  This is already different result than @nicols

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                                  • J Offline
                                    JamesG @olivierlambert
                                    last edited by

                                    @olivierlambert Not really...

                                    In Nicols first post, a single threaded iperf got 3.38Gb/s.
                                    Single threaded for me was 3.32Gb/s.

                                    With two threads I get 5.19Gb/s
                                    With 20 threads I cap off at 7.02Gb/s

                                    This performance is about the same with Windows VM's and Debian VM's. So it's not a guest OS issue. It's something in the hypervisor.

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                                    • J Offline
                                      JamesG @JamesG
                                      last edited by

                                      A note...

                                      I'm running a single 16 core, 32 thread second-gen Epyc.
                                      Nicols is running a dual proc, 24 core, 48 thread third-gen Epyc.

                                      My base clock rate is 3.0Ghz. His is 2.9Ghz.

                                      The improved caching and memory handling in the third-gen Epyc should be behaving better than my second gen CPU's, but generally speaking, our performance seems to be the same.

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                                      • olivierlambertO Offline
                                        olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                                        last edited by

                                        He said he could reach 18gbits between 2x Windows VM, if I remember correctly.

                                        I wonder about the guest kernel too (Debian 11 vs 12)

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                                        • J Offline
                                          JamesG @olivierlambert
                                          last edited by

                                          @olivierlambert With a billion threads.

                                          Anyway...

                                          I'm most definitely a willing subject to help get this resolved. Heck..I'll even give you guys access to the environment to do whatever you want to do. I would just like to see this get fixed.

                                          With that...You guys tell me. What tests do you want run and do you want access to the environment to do your own thing with it?

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                                          • olivierlambertO Offline
                                            olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                                            last edited by

                                            Can you reproduce the same speed he got on your side? Because first we need a consistent result between multiple people to be sure it's not platform related (ie Supermicro or something).

                                            The only reason we could think it's not normal is the difference between Intel and AMD, that shouldn't be that huge. Or maybe AMD CPU are a lot slower with memcpy()? 🤔

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