I think one possible solution is, if user use barrier flag, disregard the
timeout & queue size threshold and flush the queue.

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 2:45 PM, Tai, Hideyuki <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
>
>
> I'm sorry for the delayed response.
>
> I was not aware of your mail until now.
>
>
>
> Now, I think it was not appropriate to call that issue as a performance
> issue of the OF-Plugin Li design.
>
> Anyway, please let me explain that issue.
>
>
>
> [Short answer]
>
> VTN project needs a way to install a flow entry and get the result of the
> installation immediately after calling add-flow RPC.
>
> It means that VTN project wants the OFP-Li to provide a way to send a
> FLOW_MOD and a BARRIER_REQUEST immediately after an application calls the
> add-flow RPC.
>
> If I understand correctly, by default, OFP-Li sends BARRIER_REQUEST to a
> switch at 0.5 second intervals.
>
> Therefore, at the worst case, it would take 0.5 second that an application
> gets the result of the installation (BARRIER_REPLY) after it calls add-flow
> RPC.
>
> However, the 0.5 second is too long for some applications for some use
> cases.
>
>
>
> Therefore, for example, if the bug 4671 (add-flow RPC ignores barrier
> flag) is fixed, VTN project would be happy.
>
> https://bugs.opendaylight.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4671
>
> (I'm not sure if fixing the bug 4671 is fine with the design principle of
> the OFP-Li.)
>
>
>
>
>
> [Long answer]
>
> The issue we are observing is that the flow installation throughput of VTN
> feature with the OFP-Li is much slower than with OFP-He.
>
> That's because (1) OFP-Li sends BARRIER_REQUEST at 0.5 second intervals by
> default and (2) the VTN feature installs an ingress flow entry after it
> confirms that the installation of core and egress flow entries is success.
>
>
>
> For example, let's think there are three OpenFlow switches and two hosts.
>
>
>
>     Host1 - Switch1 - Switch2 - Switch3 - Host2
>
>
>
> When VTN feature creates an end-to-end flow from Host1 to Host2, firstly
> the VTN feature calls add-flow RPC to install a flow entry into Switch2
> (Core switch) and Switch3 (Egress switch).
>
> And, after the VTN feature confirms that these flow entries are
> successfully installed into these switches, it calls add-flow RPC to
> install a flow entry into Switch1 (Ingress switch).
>
> By doing this, the VTN feature avoids forwarding packets in unexpected
> ways.
>
> I mean the VTN feature installs ingress flow entries after it confirms
> that flow entries are successfully installed into core and egress switches.
>
>
>
> Therefore, now, by default, the VTN feature takes around 0.5 second to set
> up an end-to-end flow.
>
> That's why VTN wants the OFP-Li to provide a way to send a FLOW_MOD and a
> BARRIER_REQUEST immediately after an application calls add-flow RPC.
>
>
>
> I guess some other applications would face the same issue for different
> use cases.
>
>
>
> I discussed about this issue with Anil and Kamal in ODL Developer Design
> Forum in this week.
>
> So I think they would have some ideas around that issue.
>
>
>
> If I understand correctly, Anil has said that the design principle of the
> OFP-Li is to hide the concept of BARRIER_REQUEST/REPLY from applications.
>
> So he has said that the OFP-Li should not support the barrier flag in the
> input of add-flow RPC.
>
> Instead of the name "barrier flag", he has suggested that the add-flow RPC
> should introduce a new flag which means kind of to flush every messages in
> the outbound queue, anyway, it makes the OFP-Li sends FLOW_MOD and
> BARRIER_REQUEST immediately.
>
> (In that design principle, I think the OFP-Li should not support
> send-barrier RPC.)
>
>
>
> Kamal has explained that the interval time for periodic BARRIER_REQUEST is
> configurable.
>
> And, if I understand correctly, he has also explained that OFP-Li sends
> BARRIER_REQUEST when the number of FLOW_MOD it sent are over the threshold,
> and the threshold is also configurable.
>
> So if we configure the threshold to 1, the OFP-Li would send the
> BARRIER_REQUEST every time it sends FLOW_MOD.
>
> I think these configurable values are useful to applications for some use
> cases.
>
> But, in addition to these configurable values, I think it is better that
> OFP-Li also provides applications with more flexible ways, that is, a way
> to send BARRIER_REQUEST whenever applications wants, since I think some
> applications need to get the result of flow installation immediately for
> some types of flow entries, but the applications don't need to get the
> result for other types of flow entries.
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Hideyuki Tai
>
>
>
> *From:* Robert Varga [mailto:[email protected]]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 24, 2016 03:32
> *To:* Tai, Hideyuki <[email protected]>
> *Cc:* Abhijit Kumbhare <[email protected]>;
> [email protected]
> *Subject:* Re: [OpenDaylight TSC] OF-Plugin dependent projects migration
> plan to Li design in the service releases
>
>
>
> On 02/23/2016 07:31 PM, Abhijit Kumbhare wrote:
>
> ยท  According to Hideyuki - VTN has already unmerged patch (
> https://git.opendaylight.org/gerrit/#/c/35118/) for the migration.
> However they have run into a performance issue when using the RPCs.
>
>
> Hello Hideyuki-san,
>
> can you provide some details on the performance problems, so we can take
> action and make sure they are fixed?
>
> Thanks,
> Robert
>



-- 
Thanks
Anil
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