This topic describes the key elements, concepts and achitecture of TestNF.

TCA provides the speciallized platform for Telco Containerized Networking Functions (CNFs).

VMware collaborates with various 5G partners to make sure the IaaS/CaaS platform meets NFs' requirements as well as achieve good performance per 5G's standards. To achieve this goal, it's important to have an efficient way to test and validate VMware platform in good shape as a baseline.

TestNF is a tool to test, measure and diagnose TCA powered VMware Telco platform.

The following figure shows how TestNF works to test platform/infrastructure features in pod level and node level and traffic test across pods, etc.

Figure 1. TestNF architecture
Currently, three CNF flavors are supported: testnf-du, testnf-du-large and testnf-du-flexran. The following table shows the differences between them.

testnf-du

testnf-du-large

testnf-du-flexran

Required Hardware Resources

CPU: 8+CPU

Memory: 16+GB

SRIOV

CPU: 8+CPU

Memory: 32+GB

SRIOV

CPU: 8+CPU

Memory: 32+GB

SRIOV

PTP

Mt.Bryce(acc100)

Hugepages

8GB

16GB

16GB

Linux-RT Version

4.19.198-13.ph3

4.19.198-13.ph3

4.19.198-13.ph3

DPDK Version

20.11

20.11

20.11

DPDK Drivers

igb_uio, vfio-pci

igb_uio, vfio-pci

igb_uio, vfio-pci

CPU Pinning

Yes

Yes

Yes

Memory Optimization

Yes

Yes

Yes

CAT Support

Yes

No

No

Integrated Test Tools

  • Iperf

  • testpmd

  • pktgen

  • Iperf

  • testpmd

  • pktgen

  • cyclic test

  • FlexRAN (in timer mode)

  • Iperf

  • testpmd

  • pktgen

  • cyclic test

  • FlexRAN (both timer and xran modes)

CNI Support

  • ipvlan

  • macvlan

  • whereabouts

  • antrea

  • calico

  • sriov

  • dhcp

  • ipvlan

  • macvlan

  • whereabouts

  • antrea

  • calico

  • sriov

  • dhcp

  • ipvlan

  • macvlan

  • whereabouts

  • antrea

  • calico

  • sriov

  • dhcp
You can follow this guide to learn how to onboard and instantiate Test CNFs and run CaaS diagnosis.