Discover IOV and VMware NetQueue on a Budget

While researching advancements in I/O virtualization (VMware) we uncovered a "low cost" way to explore the advantages of IOV without investing in 10GbE equipment: the Intel 82576 Gigabit Network Controller which supports 8-receive queues per port. This little gem comes in a 2-port by 1Gbps PCI-express package (E1G142ET) for around $170/ea on-line. It also comes in a 4-port by 1Gbps package (full or half-height, E1G144ET) for around $450/ea on-line.

Enabling VMDq/NetQueue is straightforward:

1. Enable NetQueue in VMkernel using VMware Infrastructure 3 Client:
   
   
   
   1. Choose Configuration > Advanced Settings > VMkernel.
   
   
   2. 
      
      Select VMkernel.Boot.netNetqueueEnabled.
   
   
   
   


2. Enable the igb module in the service console of the ESX Server host:# esxcfg-module -e igb


3. Set the required load option for igb to turn on VMDq:
   The option IntMode=3 must exist to indicate loading in VMDq mode. A value of 3 for the IntMode parameter specifies using MSI-X and automatically sets the number of receive queues to the maximum supported (devices based on the 82575 Controller enable 4 receive queues per port; devices based on the 82576 Controller enable 8 receive queues per port). The number of receive queues used by the igb driver in VMDq mode cannot be changed.