HVNet: Hardware-Assisted Virtual Networking on a Single Physical Host

Network experiments using real hardware are typically expensive and time-consuming. Multiple solutions exist to reduce costs, in particular network emulation, or simulation of performance metrics. However, each solution impacts the quality of experimental results, in particular concerning realism and precision. We propose HVNet, a novel approach to create virtualized topologies on a single host utilizing real networking hardware. Relying on real hardware, our approach offers realistic network behavior and high-precision measurements. HVNet enables measurements on flexible network topologies avoiding the drawbacks of the alternative solutions. We observed repeatable results with a small error margin and a low impact of the measurement setup on experimental results. Additionally, we compare latency and jitter distributions of HVNet and Mininet setups, observing an improvement factor of up to three orders of magnitude.