While I was writing the post comparing the new Qualcomm server chip, Centriq, to our current stock of Intel Skylake-based Xeons, I noticed a disturbing phenomena.
When benchmarking OpenSSL 1.1.1dev, I discovered that the performance of the cipher ChaCha20-Poly1305 does not scale very well. On a single thread, it performed at the speed of approximately 2.89GB/s, whereas on 24 cores, and 48 threads it performed at just over 35 GB/s.
CC BY-SA 2.0 image by blumblaum
Now this is a very high number, but I would like to see something closer to 69GB/s. 35GB/s is just 1.46GB/s/core, or roughly 50% of the single core performance. AES-GCM scales much better, to 80% of single core performance, which is understandable, because the CPU can sustain higher frequency turbo on a single core, but not all cores.

Why is the scaling of ChaCha20-Poly1305 so poor? Meet AVX-512. AVX-512 is a new Intel instruction set that adds many new 512-bit wide SIMD instructions and promotes most of the existing ones to 512-bit. The problem with such wide instructions is that they consume power. A lot of power. Imagine a single instruction that does the work of 64 regular Continue reading
After explaining the challenges of data center fabric deployments, Dinesh Dutt focused on a very important topic I cover in Week#3 of the Building Network Automation Solutions online course: how do you separate data (data model describing data center fabric) from code (Ansible playbooks and device configurations)
Identity, privacy, and encryption continue to be active topics for the Internet Society and the IETF community impacting a broad range of applications. In this Rough Guide to IETF 100 post, I highlight a few of the many relevant activities happening next week in Singapore, but there is much more going on so be sure to check out the full agenda online.
Encryption continues to be a priority of the IETF as well as the security community at large. Related to encryption, there is the TLS working group developing the core specifications, several working groups addressing how to apply the work of the TLS working group to various applications, and the Crypto-Forum Research Group focusing on the details of the underlying cryptographic algorithms.
The Transport Layer Security (TLS) working group is a key IETF effort developing core security protocols for the Internet. This week’s agenda includes both TLS 1.3 and Datagram Transport Layer Security. Additionally, the TLS working group will be discussing connection ID, exported authenticators, protecting against denial of service attacks, and application layer TLS. The TLS working group is very active and, as with all things that are really important, there are many Continue reading
Next week is IETF 100 in Singapore which will be the first time the IETF has been held in the country. The Deploy360 team will be represented by Megan Kruse and Dan York, along with ISOC’s Chief Internet Technology Officer Olaf Kolkman. We’re again highlighting the latest IPv6, DNSSEC, Securing BGP, TLS and IoT related developments.
Below are the sessions that we’ll be following. Note this post was written in advance so please check the official IETF 100 agenda for any updates, room changes, or final details.
Monday, 13 November 2017
Tuesday, 14 November 2017
By 2020 at least half of the integrated risk management products on the market will be SaaS.
It added 6WIND’s vRouter to the NFV platform.
New product targets include 5G pre-builds and IoT.
Three new operators — BT, Telefonica, and Vodafone — joined the TIP board of directors.
Customers often combine MPLS with SD-WAN.
The restructuring plan includes the elimination of facilities and job cuts.