Demystifying AMD SEV Performance Penalty for NFV Deployment

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Atiiq, Syafiq Al, Risdianto, Aris Cahyadi
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Atiiq, Syafiq Al
Risdianto, Aris Cahyadi
author_facet Atiiq, Syafiq Al
Risdianto, Aris Cahyadi
contents Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has shifted communication networks towards more adaptable software solutions, but this transition raises new security concerns, particularly in public cloud deployments. While Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) offers a potential remedy, it requires complex application adaptations. This paper investigates AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) as an alternative approach for securing NFV. SEV encrypts virtual machine (VM) memory, protecting it from threats, including those at the hypervisor level, without requiring application modifications. We explore the practicality and performance implications of executing native network function (NF) implementations in AMD SEV-SNP, the latest iteration of SEV. Our study focuses on running an unmodified Snort NF within SEV. Results show an average performance penalty of approximately 20% across various traffic and packet configurations, demonstrating a trade-off between security and performance that may be acceptable for many NFV deployments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_02212
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Demystifying AMD SEV Performance Penalty for NFV Deployment
Atiiq, Syafiq Al
Risdianto, Aris Cahyadi
Networking and Internet Architecture
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has shifted communication networks towards more adaptable software solutions, but this transition raises new security concerns, particularly in public cloud deployments. While Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) offers a potential remedy, it requires complex application adaptations. This paper investigates AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) as an alternative approach for securing NFV. SEV encrypts virtual machine (VM) memory, protecting it from threats, including those at the hypervisor level, without requiring application modifications. We explore the practicality and performance implications of executing native network function (NF) implementations in AMD SEV-SNP, the latest iteration of SEV. Our study focuses on running an unmodified Snort NF within SEV. Results show an average performance penalty of approximately 20% across various traffic and packet configurations, demonstrating a trade-off between security and performance that may be acceptable for many NFV deployments.
title Demystifying AMD SEV Performance Penalty for NFV Deployment
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02212