DINT: Fast In-Kernel Distributed Transactions with eBPF

Authors: 

Yang Zhou, Harvard University; Xingyu Xiang, Peking University; Matthew Kiley, Harvard University; Sowmya Dharanipragada, Cornell University; Minlan Yu, Harvard University

Abstract: 

Serializable distributed in-memory transactions are important building blocks for data center applications. To achieve high throughput and low latency, existing distributed transaction systems eschew the kernel networking stack and rely heavily on kernel-bypass networking techniques such as RDMA and DPDK. However, kernel-bypass networking techniques generally suffer from security, isolation, protection, maintainability, and debuggability issues, while the kernel networking stack supports these properties well, but performs poorly.

We present DINT, a kernel networking stack-based distributed transaction system that achieves kernel-bypass-like throughput and latency. To gain the performance back under the kernel stack, DINT offloads frequent-path transaction operations directly into the kernel via eBPF techniques without kernel modifications or customized kernel modules, avoiding most of the kernel stack overheads. DINT does not lose the good properties of the kernel stack, as eBPF is a kernel-native technique on modern OSes. On typical transaction workloads, DINT even achieves up to 2.6× higher throughput than using a DPDK-based kernel-bypass stack, while only adding at most 10%/16% average/99th-tail unloaded latency.

NSDI '24 Open Access Sponsored by
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

Open Access Media

USENIX is committed to Open Access to the research presented at our events. Papers and proceedings are freely available to everyone once the event begins. Any video, audio, and/or slides that are posted after the event are also free and open to everyone. Support USENIX and our commitment to Open Access.

BibTeX
@inproceedings {295513,
author = {Yang Zhou and Xingyu Xiang and Matthew Kiley and Sowmya Dharanipragada and Minlan Yu},
title = {{DINT}: Fast {In-Kernel} Distributed Transactions with {eBPF}},
booktitle = {21st USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 24)},
year = {2024},
isbn = {978-1-939133-39-7},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
pages = {401--417},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi24/presentation/zhou-yang},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = apr
}

Presentation Video