This article presents performance tests (bandwidth, latency, RTT) for the following two China connectivity options:
- option#1, connectivity over the Public Internet and the Great China Firewall
- option#2, connectivity over the AliCloud VPC Peering
The China connectivity options have been presented by me in the following article: https://cloud-cod.com/index.php/2023/11/06/how-to-connect-with-china-azure-aws/
Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that the results shown below refer to my setup. The real performance/latency/bandwidth can be different in your environment.
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Throughput / Latency Tools
The following tools were used by me to measure throughput, RTT (round-trip time), and latency:
- NTTTCP for throughput/bandwidth tests: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-network-bandwidth-testing?tabs=linux
- SockPerf for RTT and latency tests: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-network-test-latency?tabs=linux
Option#1 - Connectivity over the Public Internet
The topology I created for this scenario looks as follows:
Please notice the following:
- BGPoIPSEC was created between Azure West Europe Transit GWs and Azure China North 3 Transit GWs
- The communication was flowing through the Public Internet and the Great China Firewall
- All Aviatrix Gateways were deployed with HA enabled (though for the single traffic flow, the results will be the same with HA not enabled)
- There were no firewalls deployed in the Transit Firenet
- The following instance sizes were used
- Aviatrix Gateways (Transits and Spokes) in West Europe and China North 3: Standard_D8s_v3 (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/dv3-dsv3-series#dsv3-series)
- Test Virtual Machines (West Europe and China North 3): Standard_D4s_v3
- The duration of every single test was 5 minutes (300 seconds)
- The tests were performed during various times of day (to verify whether there was an impact depending on the time the test was executed)
Please note, that due to the nature of the Internet (plenty of independent ISPs involved in the path) the performance/bandwidth/latency cannot be ensured at any time.
Moreover, I performed some long-lasting PING tests to check whether there were any packet drops. Here are the results (no packet drops):
The bandwidth/throughput test results for connectivity from Europe to China:
The bandwidth/throughput test results for connectivity from China to Europe:
The RTT test results for connectivity from Europe to China:
The RTT test results for connectivity from China to Europe:
The latency test results for connectivity from Europe to China:
The latency test results for connectivity from China to Europe:
Option#2 - Connectivity through AliCloud VPC Peering
The topology I created for this scenario looks as follows:
Please notice the following:
- BGPoIPSEC was created between AliCloud Germany Transit GWs and AliCloud China Transit GWs
- The communication was flowing through theAliCloud VPC Peering
- According to AliCloud docs the maximumtheoretical inter-region VPC Peering bandwidth is 1024Mbps: https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/vpc/user-guide/overview-6
- All Aviatrix Gateways were deployed with HA enabled (though for the single traffic flow, the results will be the same with HA not enabled)
- There were no firewalls deployed in the Transit Firenet
- The following instance sizes were used (I am pretty sure the sizes used were not causing any limitations when it comes to our tests)
- Aviatrix Gateways (Transits) in AliCloud Germany and AliCloud China: ecs.g6.4xlarge (https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/ecs/user-guide/general-purpose-instance-families?spm=a2c63.p38356.0.0.2077788cvhwnoG)
- Aviatrix Gateways (Transits and Spokes) in Azure West Europe and Azure China North 3: Standard_D8s_v3 (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/dv3-dsv3-series#dsv3-series)
- Test Virtual Machines (West Europe and China North 3): Standard_D4s_v3
- The duration of every single test was 5 minutes (300 seconds)
- The tests were performed during various times of day (to verify whether there was impact depending on the time the test was executed)
The bandwidth/throughput test results for connectivity from Europe to China:
The bandwidth/throughput test results for connectivity from China to Europe:
The RTT test results for connectivity from Europe to China:
The RTT test results for connectivity from China to Europe:
The latency test results for connectivity from Europe to China:
The latency test results for connectivity from China to Europe:
Test Summary and Conclusions
It is difficult to compare bandwidth because it varied during different tests. However, the BW achieved during option#2 tests were better by 25-70% compared to option#1
When it comes to RTT and Latency, the results clearly show that leveraging AliCloud VPC Peering (instead of going through the Public Internet) reduces RTT and Latency by 50% (!!!!) – amazing in my opinion. This is proof of how the Public Internet routing is not optimal and how much Latency is added
Bandwidth Test Results Comparison
| Option#1 - the Public Internet [Mbps] | Option#2 - AliCloud VPC Peering [Mbps] | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test#1 | Test#2 | Test#3 | Test#4 | Test#5 | Test#1 | Test#2 | Test#3 | Test#4 | Test#5 | |
| from West Europe to China | 222.88 | 270.53 | 280.44 | 286.89 | 298.96 | 344.55 | 351.50 | 376.87 | 342.06 | 352.15 |
| from China to West Europe | 242.58 | 252.83 | 257.80 | 263.15 | 249.61 | 361.94 | 330.92 | 376.58 | 357.46 | 364.22 |
Round-Trip Time Test Results Comparison
| Option#1 - the Public Internet) | Option#2 - AliCloud VPC Peering | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test#1 | Test#2 | Test#1 | Test#2 | |
| from West Europe to China | 231.995 msec | 231.780 msec | 138.098 msec | 135.806 msec |
| from China to West Europe | 229.004 msec | 229.170 msec | 137.339 msec | 139.034 msec |
Latency Time Test Results Comparison
| Option#1 - the Public Internet | Option#2 - AliCloud VPC Peering | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test#1 | Test#2 | Test#1 | Test#2 | |
| from West Europe to China | 114.165 msec | 115.416 msec | 70.112 msec | 69.118 msec |
| from China to West Europe | 115.350 msec | 114.503 msec | 69.039 msec | 69.639 msec |