Time-stamping accuracy in virtualized environments

In English The swift acceptance and the widespread use of virtual
environments has substantially increased the stress on networks
as each of the operating systems running in parallel sends out
packets over the same network. As an increased number of
packets traverse a network, the importance to continuously
monitor whether the network is providing satisfactory service
has increased. The metrics for such analyses includes delay,
jitter, packet loss and available path capacity. The basic
parameter required to quantify these metrics is the timestamping
values of the packets. The purpose of this research
work is to characterize the impact of virtualization on a PC's
time-stamping process. Operating system virtualization is
employed where the time-stamping is done by the operating
system kernel. CPU load and packet generating parameters are
varied in order to study about the effect of virtualization on the
time-stamping process under different operating conditions.