The True Cost of Containing: A gVisor Case Study

Authors: 

Ethan G. Young, Pengfei Zhu, Tyler Caraza-Harter, Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau, and Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract: 

We analyze many facets of the performance of gVisor, a new security-oriented container engine that integrates with Docker and backs Google’s serverless platform. We explore the effect gVisor’s in-Sentry network stack has on network throughput as well as the overheads of performing all file opens via gVisor’s Gofer service. We further analyze gVisor startup performance, memory efficiency, and system-call overheads. Our findings have implications for the future design of similar hypervisor- based container engines.

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {234857,
author = {Ethan G. Young and Pengfei Zhu and Tyler Caraza-Harter and Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau and Remzi H. Arpaci-Dusseau},
title = {The True Cost of Containing: A {gVisor} Case Study},
booktitle = {11th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing (HotCloud 19)},
year = {2019},
address = {Renton, WA},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/hotcloud19/presentation/young},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jul
}