10GbE Network Card Performance Evaluation: A Strategy Based on Sensitivity Analysis

Nowadays, Big Data is emerging as a crucial approach to manage the huge amount of information produced by the growing number of devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). The 10GbE Network Interface Card (NIC) is one of the most common hardware used to transmit and receive packets in data centers around the globe. High-speed packet capture and processing frameworks are used in conjunction with network adapters to process data. These frameworks try to process large quantities of packets without discard. However, it is difficult to realize which NIC combined with framework is more efficient considering multiple parameters. This paper presents a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the impact of two NIC brands (Intel and Chelsio) and two packet capture frameworks (Netmap and PF_Ring). The goal is to indicate which metric each combination has the most significant impact. Different combinations have stood out in specific scenarios, for example: (i) the Chelsio board in conjunction with the Netmap framework were able to offer a higher packages flow rate; (ii) the Chelsio board and the PF_Ring framework require fewer computational resources to process smaller packets; (iii) to process larger packages, the Intel board and Netmap framework are less demanding. Therefore, this work aims at assisting infrastructure managers to choose NICs and packet capture frameworks in a more efficient way.