Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Demystifying AMD SEV Performance Penalty for NFV Deployment

Atiiq, Syafiq Al LU and Risdianto, Aris Cahyadi (2025) 13th International Conference on Networks, Communication
and Computing, ICNCC '24 p.1-8
Abstract
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has shifted communication networks towards more adaptable software solutions, but this transition raises new security concerns, particularly in public cloud deployments. While Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) offers a potential remedy, it requires complex application adaptations. This paper investigates AMD’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) as an alternative approach for securing NFV. SEV encrypts virtual machine (VM) memory, protecting it from threats, including those at the hypervisor level, without requiring application modifications. We explore the practicality and performance implications of executing native Network Function (NF) implementations in AMD SEV-SNP, the latest iteration of... (More)
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has shifted communication networks towards more adaptable software solutions, but this transition raises new security concerns, particularly in public cloud deployments. While Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) offers a potential remedy, it requires complex application adaptations. This paper investigates AMD’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) as an alternative approach for securing NFV. SEV encrypts virtual machine (VM) memory, protecting it from threats, including those at the hypervisor level, without requiring application modifications. We explore the practicality and performance implications of executing native Network Function (NF) implementations in AMD SEV-SNP, the latest iteration of SEV at the time of writing this paper. Our study focuses on running an unmodified Snort NF within SEV. Results show an average performance penalty of approximately 20% across various traffic and packet configurations, showing a trade-off between security and performance that may or may not be acceptable for different NFV deployments. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
host publication
Proceedings of the 2024 13th International Conference on Networks, Communication and Computing, ICNCC'24
pages
1 - 8
publisher
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
conference name
13th International Conference on Networks, Communication<br/>and Computing, ICNCC '24
conference location
Bangkok, Thailand
conference dates
2024-12-20 - 2024-12-22
external identifiers
  • scopus:105002332072
ISBN
979-8-4007-1735-2
DOI
10.1145/3711650.3711651
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
8aeed8d2-fd8d-47e3-b1d1-62a65f790d00
date added to LUP
2025-03-12 09:17:47
date last changed
2025-06-13 04:02:58
@inproceedings{8aeed8d2-fd8d-47e3-b1d1-62a65f790d00,
  abstract     = {{Network Function Virtualization (NFV) has shifted communication networks towards more adaptable software solutions, but this transition raises new security concerns, particularly in public cloud deployments. While Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) offers a potential remedy, it requires complex application adaptations. This paper investigates AMD’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) as an alternative approach for securing NFV. SEV encrypts virtual machine (VM) memory, protecting it from threats, including those at the hypervisor level, without requiring application modifications. We explore the practicality and performance implications of executing native Network Function (NF) implementations in AMD SEV-SNP, the latest iteration of SEV at the time of writing this paper. Our study focuses on running an unmodified Snort NF within SEV. Results show an average performance penalty of approximately 20% across various traffic and packet configurations, showing a trade-off between security and performance that may or may not be acceptable for different NFV deployments.}},
  author       = {{Atiiq, Syafiq Al and Risdianto, Aris Cahyadi}},
  booktitle    = {{Proceedings of the 2024 13th International Conference on Networks, Communication and Computing, ICNCC'24}},
  isbn         = {{979-8-4007-1735-2}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{03}},
  pages        = {{1--8}},
  publisher    = {{Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)}},
  title        = {{Demystifying AMD SEV Performance Penalty for NFV Deployment}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3711650.3711651}},
  doi          = {{10.1145/3711650.3711651}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}