Network Bandwidth Isolation

When sharing resources in a virtualised environment various issues of fairness arise. One such resource is network bandwidth and, in particular, ensuring that guests get some share of the available bandwidth, regardless of the network utilisation of other guests on the same host. Focusing on a Xen/Linux host environment, this presentation will examine problems that can arise and what methods exist to counter those problems.

This presentation is targeted at both system administrators and developers. It is aimed specifically at people with an understanding of configuring networking on Linux systems and an interest in implementation details.

Looking at ways to control guest bandwidth usage to ensure fair sharing of network resources. In particular to mitigate against the effects of malicious guests or guests that are infected with virus.

Short presentation given at Xen Summit Tokyo 2008