Benchmarking Methodology Working Group B. Balarajah Internet-Draft Intended status: Informational C. Rossenhoevel Expires: May 3, 2021 EANTC AG B. Monkman NetSecOPEN October 30, 2020 Benchmarking Methodology for Network Security Device Performance draft-ietf-bmwg-ngfw-performance-05 Abstract This document provides benchmarking terminology and methodology for next-generation network security devices including next-generation firewalls (NGFW), next-generation intrusion detection and prevention systems (NGIDS/NGIPS) and unified threat management (UTM) implementations. This document aims to strongly improve the applicability, reproducibility, and transparency of benchmarks and to align the test methodology with today's increasingly complex layer 7 application use cases. The main areas covered in this document are test terminology, test configuration parameters, and benchmarking methodology for NGFW and NGIDS/NGIPS to start with. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on May 3, 2021. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1. Testbed Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.2. DUT/SUT Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.2.1. Security Effectiveness Configuration . . . . . . . . 11 4.3. Test Equipment Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.3.1. Client Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.3.2. Backend Server Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 4.3.3. Traffic Flow Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.3.4. Traffic Load Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 5. Test Bed Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 6. Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 6.1. Key Performance Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 7. Benchmarking Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 7.1. Throughput Performance With Application Traffic Mix . . . 21 7.1.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 7.1.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 7.1.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 7.1.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 23 7.2. TCP/HTTP Connections Per Second . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 7.2.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 7.2.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 7.2.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 7.2.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 26 7.3. HTTP Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 7.3.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 7.3.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 7.3.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 7.3.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 29 7.4. TCP/HTTP Transaction Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 7.4.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 7.4.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 7.4.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 7.4.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 32 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.5. Concurrent TCP/HTTP Connection Capacity . . . . . . . . . 33 7.5.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 7.5.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 7.5.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 7.5.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 35 7.6. TCP/HTTPS Connections per Second . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 7.6.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 7.6.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 7.6.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 7.6.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 38 7.7. HTTPS Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 7.7.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 7.7.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 7.7.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 7.7.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 42 7.8. HTTPS Transaction Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 7.8.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 7.8.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 7.8.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 7.8.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 45 7.9. Concurrent TCP/HTTPS Connection Capacity . . . . . . . . 46 7.9.1. Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 7.9.2. Test Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 7.9.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 7.9.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results . . . . . . . . 48 8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 10. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Appendix A. Test Methodology - Security Effectiveness Evaluation 51 A.1. Test Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 A.2. Testbed setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 A.3. Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 A.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters . . . . . . . . . . 52 A.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters . . . . . . . 52 A.4. Test Results Validation Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 A.5. Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 A.6. Test Procedures and expected Results . . . . . . . . . . 54 A.6.1. Step 1: Background traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 A.6.2. Step 2: CVE emulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 1. Introduction 15 years have passed since IETF recommended test methodology and terminology for firewalls initially ([RFC2647], [RFC3511]). The requirements for network security element performance and effectiveness have increased tremendously since then. Security function implementations have evolved to more advanced areas and have diversified into intrusion detection and prevention, threat management, analysis of encrypted traffic, etc. In an industry of growing importance, well-defined, and reproducible key performance indicators (KPIs) are increasingly needed as they enable fair and reasonable comparison of network security functions. All these reasons have led to the creation of a new next-generation security device benchmarking document. 2. Requirements The keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119], [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. 3. Scope This document provides testing terminology and testing methodology for next-generation security devices. It covers the validation of security effectiveness configurations of the security devices, followed by performance benchmark testing. This document focuses on advanced, realistic, and reproducible testing methods. Additionally, it describes testbed environments, test tool requirements, and test result formats. 4. Test Setup Test setup defined in this document is applicable to all benchmarking test scenarios described in Section 7. 4.1. Testbed Configuration Testbed configuration MUST ensure that any performance implications that are discovered during the benchmark testing aren't due to the inherent physical network limitations such as the number of physical links and forwarding performance capabilities (throughput and latency) of the network devices in the testbed. For this reason, this document recommends avoiding external devices such as switches and routers in the testbed wherever possible. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 However, in the typical deployment, the security devices (Device Under Test/System Under Test) are connected to routers and switches which will reduce the number of entries in MAC or ARP tables of the Device Under Test/System Under Test (DUT/SUT). If MAC or ARP tables have many entries, this may impact the actual DUT/SUT performance due to MAC and ARP/ND (Neighbor Discovery) table lookup processes. Therefore, it is RECOMMENDED to connect aggregation switches or routers between test equipment and DUT/SUT as shown in Figure 1. The aggregation switches or routers can be also used to aggregate the test equipment or DUT/SUT ports, if the numbers of used ports are mismatched between test equipment and DUT/SUT. If the test equipment is capable of emulating layer 3 routing functionality and there is no need for a test equipment port aggregation, it is RECOMMENDED to configure the test setup as shown in Figure 2. +-------------------+ +-----------+ +--------------------+ |Aggregation Switch/| | | | Aggregation Switch/| | Router +------+ DUT/SUT +------+ Router | | | | | | | +----------+--------+ +-----------+ +--------+-----------+ | | | | +-----------+-----------+ +-----------+-----------+ | | | | | +-------------------+ | | +-------------------+ | | | Emulated Router(s)| | | | Emulated Router(s)| | | | (Optional) | | | | (Optional) | | | +-------------------+ | | +-------------------+ | | +-------------------+ | | +-------------------+ | | | Clients | | | | Servers | | | +-------------------+ | | +-------------------+ | | | | | | Test Equipment | | Test Equipment | +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ Figure 1: Testbed Setup - Option 1 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ | +-------------------+ | +-----------+ | +-------------------+ | | | Emulated Router(s)| | | | | | Emulated Router(s)| | | | (Optional) | +----- DUT/SUT +-----+ (Optional) | | | +-------------------+ | | | | +-------------------+ | | +-------------------+ | +-----------+ | +-------------------+ | | | Clients | | | | Servers | | | +-------------------+ | | +-------------------+ | | | | | | Test Equipment | | Test Equipment | +-----------------------+ +-----------------------+ Figure 2: Testbed Setup - Option 2 4.2. DUT/SUT Configuration A unique DUT/SUT configuration MUST be used for all benchmarking tests described in Section 7. Since each DUT/SUT will have their own unique configuration, users SHOULD configure their device with the same parameters and security features that would be used in the actual deployment of the device or a typical deployment in order to achieve maximum security coverage. This document attempts to define the recommended security features which SHOULD be consistently enabled for all the benchmarking tests described in Section 7. Table 1 and Table 2 below describe the sets of security feature list for NGFW and NGIDS/NGIPS that SHOULD be configured on the DUT/SUT respectively. To improve repeatability, a summary of the DUT configuration including a description of all enabled DUT/SUT features MUST be published with the benchmarking results. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 +------------------------+ | NGFW | +-------------- +-------------+----------+ | | | | |DUT Features | RECOMMENDED | OPTIONAL | | | | | +----------------------------------------+ |SSL Inspection | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |IDS/IPS | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Anti Spyware | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Antivirus | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Anti Botnet | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Web Filtering | | x | +----------------------------------------+ |DLP | | x | +----------------------------------------+ |DDoS | | x | +----------------------------------------+ |Certificate | | x | |Validation | | | +----------------------------------------+ |Logging and | x | | |Reporting | | | +-------------- +------------------------+ |Application | x | | |Identification | | | +---------------+-------------+----------+ Table 1: NGFW Security Features Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 +------------------------+ | NGIDS/NGIPS | +-----------------------------+----------+ | | | | |DUT Features | RECOMMENDED | OPTIONAL | | | | | +----------------------------------------+ |SSL Inspection | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Anti Spyware | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Antivirus | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Anti Botnet | x | | +----------------------------------------+ |Logging and | x | | |Reporting | | | +-------------+ +------------------------+ |Application | x | | |Identification | | | +----------------------------------------+ |Deep Packet | x | | |Inspection | | | +----------------------------------------+ |Anti Evasion | x | | +---------------+-------------+----------+ Table 2: NGIDS/NGIPS Security Features The following table provides a brief description of the security features. +------------------+------------------------------------------------+ | DUT/SUT Features | Description | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | SSL Inspection | DUT/SUT intercept and decrypt inbound HTTPS | | | traffic between servers and clients. Once the | | | content inspection has been completed, DUT/SUT | | | MUST encrypt the HTTPS traffic with ciphers | | | and keys used by the clients and servers. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | IDS/IPS | DUT/SUT MUST detect and block exploits | | | targeting known and unknown vulnerabilities | | | across the monitored network. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Anti Malware | DUT/SUT MUST detect and prevent the | | | transmission of malicious executable code and | | | any associated communications across the | Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 | | monitored network. This includes data | | | exfiltration as well as command and control .| | | channels. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Anti Spyware |Anti-Spyware is a subcategory of Anti Malware. | | |Spyware transmits information without the user's| | |knowledge or permission. DUT/SUT MUST detect and| | |block initial infection or transmission of data.| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Anti Botnet |DUT/SUT MUST detect traffic to or from botnets. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Anti Evasion |DUT/SUT MUST detect and mitigate attacks that | | |have been obfuscated in some manner. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Web Filtering | DUT/SUT MUST detect and block malicious website| | | including defined classifications of website | | | across the monitored network. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | DLP | DUT/SUT MUST detect and block the transmission | | | of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) | | | and specific files across the monitored network| +------------------+ ---------------------------------------------+ | Certificate | DUT/SUT MUST validate certificates used in | | Validation | encrypted communications across the monitored | | | network. | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Logging and | DUT/SUT MUST be able to log and report all | | Reporting | traffic at the flow level across the monitored.| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Application | DUT/SUT MUST detect known applications as | | Identification | defined within the traffic mix selected across | | | the monitored network. | +------------------+------------------------------------------------- Table 3: Security Feature Description In summary, DUT/SUT SHOULD be configured as follows: o All RECOMMENDED security inspection enabled o Disposition of all flows of traffic are logged - Logging to an external device is permissible o Geographical location filtering and Application Identification and Control configured to be triggered based on a site or application from the defined traffic mix Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 In addition, a realistic number of access control rules (ACL) MUST be configured on the DUT/SUT. However, this is applicable only for the security devices where ACL's are configurable and also the ACL configuration on NGIDS/NGIPS devices is OPTIONAL. This document determines the number of access policy rules for four different classes of DUT/SUT. The classification of the DUT/SUT MAY be based on its maximum supported firewall throughput performance number defined in the vendor datasheet. This document classifies the DUT/ SUT in four different categories; namely Extra Small, Small, Medium, and Large. The RECOMMENDED throughput values for the following classes are: Extra Small (XS) - supported throughput less than 1Gbit/s Small (S) - supported throughput less than 5Gbit/s Medium (M) - supported throughput greater than 5Gbit/s and less than 10Gbit/s Large (L) - supported throughput greater than 10Gbit/s The Access Control Rules (ACL) defined in Table 4 MUST be configured from top to bottom in the correct order as shown in the table. The ACL entries MUST be configured in Forward Information Base (FIB) table of the DUT/SUT. (Note: There will be differences between how security vendors implement ACL decision making.) The configured ACL MUST NOT block the security and performance test traffic used for the benchmarking test scenarios. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 +---------------+ | DUT/SUT | | Classification| | # Rules | +-----------+-----------+------------------+------------+---+---+---+ | | Match | | | | | | | | Rules Type| Criteria | Description | Action | XS| S | M | L | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Application|Application| Any application | block | 5 | 10| 20| 50| |layer | | traffic NOT | | | | | | | | | included in the | | | | | | | | | test traffic | | | | | | +-----------------------+ ------------------------------------------+ |Transport |Src IP and | Any src IP subnet| block | 25| 50|100|250| |layer |TCP/UDP | used in the test | | | | | | | |Dst ports | AND any dst ports| | | | | | | | | NOT used in the | | | | | | | | | test traffic | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |IP layer |Src/Dst IP | Any src/dst IP | block | 25| 50|100|250| | | | subnet NOT used | | | | | | | | | in the test | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Application|Application| Applications | allow | 10| 10| 10| 10| |layer | | included in the | | | | | | | | | test traffic | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transport |Src IP and | Half of the src | allow | 1| 1| 1| 1| |layer |TCP/UDP | IP used in the | | | | | | | |Dst ports | test AND any dst | | | | | | | | | ports used in the| | | | | | | | | test traffic. One| | | | | | | | | rule per subnet | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |IP layer |Src IP | The rest of the | allow | 1| 1| 1| 1| | | | src IP subnet | | | | | | | | | range used in the| | | | | | | | | test. One rule | | | | | | | | | per subnet | | | | | | +-----------+-----------+------------------+--------+---+---+---+---+ Table 4: DUT/SUT Access List 4.2.1. Security Effectiveness Configuration The Security features (defined in table 1 and 2) of the DUT/SUT MUST be configured effectively in such a way to detect, prevent, and report the defined security Vulnerability sets. This Section defines Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 the selection of the security Vulnerability sets from Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list for the testing. The vulnerability set MUST reflects a minimum of 500 CVEs from no older than 10 calendar years to the current year. These CVEs SHOULD be selected with a focus on in-use software commonly found in business applications, with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Severity of High (7-10). This Document is mainly focused on performance benchmarking. However, it is strongly RECOMMENDED to validate the security configuration of the DUT/SUT by evaluating the security effectiveness as a Prerequisite for performance benchmarking tests defined in the section 7. The Methodology for evaluating Security effectiveness is defined in Appendix A. 4.3. Test Equipment Configuration In general, test equipment allows configuring parameters in different protocol layers. These parameters thereby influence the traffic flows which will be offered and impact performance measurements. This section specifies common test equipment configuration parameters applicable for all test scenarios defined in Section 7. Any test scenario specific parameters are described under the test setup section of each test scenario individually. 4.3.1. Client Configuration This section specifies which parameters SHOULD be considered while configuring clients using test equipment. Also, this section specifies the RECOMMENDED values for certain parameters. 4.3.1.1. TCP Stack Attributes The TCP stack SHOULD use a TCP Reno [RFC5681] variant, which include congestion avoidance, back off and windowing, fast retransmission, and fast recovery on every TCP connection between client and server endpoints. The default IPv4 and IPv6 MSS segments size MUST be set to 1460 bytes and 1440 bytes respectively and a TX and RX receive windows of 64 KByte. Client initial congestion window MUST NOT exceed 10 times the MSS. Delayed ACKs are permitted and the maximum client delayed Ack MUST NOT exceed 10 times the MSS before a forced ACK. Up to 3 retries SHOULD be allowed before a timeout event is declared. All traffic MUST set the TCP PSH flag to high. The source port range SHOULD be in the range of 1024 - 65535. Internal timeout SHOULD be dynamically scalable per RFC 793. The client SHOULD initiate and close TCP connections. TCP connections MUST be closed via FIN. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 4.3.1.2. Client IP Address Space The sum of the client IP space SHOULD contain the following attributes. o The IP blocks SHOULD consist of multiple unique, discontinuous static address blocks. o A default gateway is permitted. o The IPv4 Type of Service (ToS) byte or IPv6 traffic class should be set to '00' or '000000' respectively. The following equation can be used to determine the required total number of client IP addresses. Desired total number of client IP = Target throughput [Mbit/s] / Throughput per IP address [Mbit/s] Based on deployment and use case scenario, the value for "Throughput per IP address" can be varied. (Option 1) DUT/SUT deployment scenario 1 : 6-7 Mbit/s per IP (e.g. 1,400-1,700 IPs per 10Gbit/s throughput) (Option 2) DUT/SUT deployment scenario 2 : 0.1-0.2 Mbit/s per IP (e.g. 50,000-100,000 IPs per 10Gbit/s throughput) Based on deployment and use case scenario, client IP addresses SHOULD be distributed between IPv4 and IPv6 type. The Following options can be considered for a selection of traffic mix ratio. (Option 1) 100 % IPv4, no IPv6 (Option 2) 80 % IPv4, 20% IPv6 (Option 3) 50 % IPv4, 50% IPv6 (Option 4) 20 % IPv4, 80% IPv6 (Option 5) no IPv4, 100% IPv6 4.3.1.3. Emulated Web Browser Attributes The emulated web client contains attributes that will materially affect how traffic is loaded. The objective is to emulate modern, typical browser attributes to improve realism of the result set. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 13] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 For HTTP traffic emulation, the emulated browser MUST negotiate HTTP 1.1. HTTP persistence MAY be enabled depending on the test scenario. The browser MAY open multiple TCP connections per Server endpoint IP at any time depending on how many sequential transactions are needed to be processed. Within the TCP connection multiple transactions MAY be processed if the emulated browser has available connections. The browser SHOULD advertise a User-Agent header. Headers MUST be sent uncompressed. The browser SHOULD enforce content length validation. For encrypted traffic, the following attributes SHALL define the negotiated encryption parameters. The test clients MUST use TLSv1.2 or higher. TLS record size MAY be optimized for the HTTPS response object size up to a record size of 16 KByte. The client endpoint SHOULD send TLS Extension Server Name Indication (SNI) information when opening a security tunnel. Each client connection MUST perform a full handshake with server certificate and MUST NOT use session reuse or resumption. The following ciphers and keys are RECOMMENDED to use for HTTPS based benchmarking tests defined in Section 7. 1. ECHDE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 with Prime256v1 (Signature Hash Algorithm: ecdsa_secp256r1_sha256 and Supported group: sepc256r1) 2. ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 with RSA 2048 (Signature Hash Algorithm: rsa_pkcs1_sha256 and Supported group: sepc256) 3. ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 with Secp521 (Signature Hash Algorithm: ecdsa_secp384r1_sha384 and Supported group: sepc521r1) 4. ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 with RSA 4096 (Signature Hash Algorithm: rsa_pkcs1_sha384 and Supported group: secp256) Note: The above ciphers and keys were those commonly used enterprise grade encryption cipher suites. It is recognized that these will evolve over time. Individual certification bodies SHOULD use ciphers and keys that reflect evolving use cases. These choices MUST be documented in the resulting test reports with detailed information on the ciphers and keys used along with reasons for the choices. 4.3.2. Backend Server Configuration This section specifies which parameters should be considered while configuring emulated backend servers using test equipment. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 14] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 4.3.2.1. TCP Stack Attributes The TCP stack on the server side SHOULD be configured similar to the client side configuration described in Section 4.3.1.1. In addition, server initial congestion window MUST NOT exceed 10 times the MSS. Delayed ACKs are permitted and the maximum server delayed ACK MUST NOT exceed 10 times the MSS before a forced ACK. 4.3.2.2. Server Endpoint IP Addressing The sum of the server IP space SHOULD contain the following attributes. o The server IP blocks SHOULD consist of unique, discontinuous static address blocks with one IP per Server Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) endpoint per test port. o A default gateway is permitted. The IPv4 ToS byte and IPv6 traffic class bytes should be set to '00' and '000000' respectively. o The server IP addresses SHOULD be distributed between IPv4 and IPv6 with a ratio identical to the clients distribution ratio. 4.3.2.3. HTTP / HTTPS Server Pool Endpoint Attributes The server pool for HTTP SHOULD listen on TCP port 80 and emulate HTTP version 1.1 with persistence. The Server MUST advertise server type in the Server response header [RFC2616]. For HTTPS server, TLS 1.2 or higher MUST be used with a maximum record size of 16 KByte and MUST NOT use ticket resumption or Session ID reuse. The server MUST listen on port TCP 443. The server SHALL serve a certificate to the client. The HTTPS server MUST check Host SNI information with the FQDN if the SNI is in use. Cipher suite and key size on the server side MUST be configured similar to the client side configuration described in Section 4.3.1.3. 4.3.3. Traffic Flow Definition This section describes the traffic pattern between client and server endpoints. At the beginning of the test, the server endpoint initializes and will be ready to accept connection states including initialization of the TCP stack as well as bound HTTP and HTTPS servers. When a client endpoint is needed, it will initialize and be given attributes such as a MAC and IP address. The behavior of the client is to sweep through the given server IP space, sequentially generating a recognizable service by the DUT. Thus, a balanced, mesh between client endpoints and server endpoints will be generated in a Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 15] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 client port server port combination. Each client endpoint performs the same actions as other endpoints, with the difference being the source IP of the client endpoint and the target server IP pool. The client MUST use the servers IP address or Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN) in Host Headers. For TLS the client MAY use Server Name Indication (SNI). 4.3.3.1. Description of Intra-Client Behavior Client endpoints are independent of other clients that are concurrently executing. When a client endpoint initiates traffic, this section describes how the client steps through different services. Once the test is initialized, the client endpoints SHOULD randomly hold (perform no operation) for a few milliseconds to allow for better randomization of the start of client traffic. Each client will either open a new TCP connection or connect to a TCP persistence stack still open to that specific server. At any point that the service profile may require encryption, a TLS encryption tunnel will form presenting the URL or IP address request to the server. If using SNI, the server will then perform an SNI name check with the proposed FQDN compared to the domain embedded in the certificate. Only when correct, will the server process the HTTPS response object. The initial response object to the server MUST NOT have a fixed size; its size is based on benchmarking tests described in Section 7. Multiple additional sub-URLs (response objects on the service page) MAY be requested simultaneously. This MAY be to the same server IP as the initial URL. Each sub-object will also use a conical FQDN and URL path, as observed in the traffic mix used. 4.3.4. Traffic Load Profile The loading of traffic is described in this section. The loading of a traffic load profile has five distinct phases: Init, ramp up, sustain, ramp down, and collection. 1. During the Init phase, testbed devices including the client and server endpoints should negotiate layer 2-3 connectivity such as MAC learning and ARP. Only after successful MAC learning or ARP/ ND resolution SHALL the test iteration move to the next phase. No measurements are made in this phase. The minimum RECOMMEND time for Init phase is 5 seconds. During this phase, the emulated clients SHOULD NOT initiate any sessions with the DUT/ SUT, in contrast, the emulated servers should be ready to accept requests from DUT/SUT or from emulated clients. 2. In the ramp up phase, the test equipment SHOULD start to generate the test traffic. It SHOULD use a set approximate number of unique client IP addresses actively to generate traffic. The Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 16] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 traffic SHOULD ramp from zero to desired target objective. The target objective will be defined for each benchmarking test. The duration for the ramp up phase MUST be configured long enough, so that the test equipment does not overwhelm DUT/SUT's supported performance metrics namely; connections per second, throughput, concurrent TCP connections, and application transactions per second. No measurements are made in this phase. 3. In the sustain phase, the test equipment SHOULD continue generating traffic to constant target value for a constant number of active client IPs. The minimum RECOMMENDED time duration for sustain phase is 300 seconds. This is the phase where measurements occur. 4. In the ramp down/close phase, no new connections are established, and no measurements are made. The time duration for ramp up and ramp down phase SHOULD be the same. 5. The last phase is administrative and will occur when the test equipment merges and collates the report data. 5. Test Bed Considerations This section recommends steps to control the test environment and test equipment, specifically focusing on virtualized environments and virtualized test equipment. 1. Ensure that any ancillary switching or routing functions between the system under test and the test equipment do not limit the performance of the traffic generator. This is specifically important for virtualized components (vSwitches, vRouters). 2. Verify that the performance of the test equipment matches and reasonably exceeds the expected maximum performance of the system under test. 3. Assert that the testbed characteristics are stable during the entire test session. Several factors might influence stability specifically for virtualized test beds. For example additional workloads in a virtualized system, load balancing, and movement of virtual machines during the test, or simple issues such as additional heat created by high workloads leading to an emergency CPU performance reduction. Testbed reference pre-tests help to ensure that the maximum desired traffic generator aspects such as throughput, transaction per second, connection per second, concurrent connection, and latency. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 17] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Once the desired maximum performance goals for the system under test have been identified, a safety margin of 10% SHOULD be added for throughput and subtracted for maximum latency and maximum packet loss. Testbed preparation may be performed either by configuring the DUT in the most trivial setup (fast forwarding) or without presence of the DUT. 6. Reporting This section describes how the final report should be formatted and presented. The final test report MAY have two major sections; Introduction and result sections. The following attributes SHOULD be present in the introduction section of the test report. 1. The time and date of the execution of the test MUST be prominent. 2. Summary of testbed software and Hardware details A. DUT/SUT Hardware/Virtual Configuration + This section SHOULD clearly identify the make and model of the DUT/SUT + The port interfaces, including speed and link information MUST be documented. + If the DUT/SUT is a Virtual Network Function (VNF), host(server) hardware and software details, interface acceleration type such as DPDK and SR-IOV used CPU cores, used RAM, and the resource sharing (e.g. Pinning details and NUMA Node) configuration MUST be documented. The virtual components such as Hypervisor, virtual switch version MUST be also documented. + Any additional hardware relevant to the DUT/SUT such as controllers MUST be documented B. DUT/SUT Software + The operating system name MUST be documented + The version MUST be documented + The specific configuration MUST be documented C. DUT/SUT Enabled Features Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 18] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 + Configured DUT/SUT features (see Table 1 and Table 2) MUST be documented + Attributes of those featured MUST be documented + Any additional relevant information about features MUST be documented D. Test equipment hardware and software + Test equipment vendor name + Hardware details including model number, interface type + Test equipment firmware and test application software version E. Key test parameters + Used cipher suites and keys + IPv4 and IPv6 traffic distribution + Number of configured ACL F. Details of application traffic mix used in the test scenario Throughput Performance With Application Traffic Mix (Section 7.1) + Name of applications and layer 7 protocols + Percentage of emulated traffic for each application and layer 7 protocols + Percentage of encrypted traffic and used cipher suites and keys (The RECOMMENDED ciphers and keys are defined in Section 4.3.1.3) + Used object sizes for each application and layer 7 protocols 3. Results Summary / Executive Summary 1. Results SHOULD resemble a pyramid in how it is reported, with the introduction section documenting the summary of results in a prominent, easy to read block. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 19] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 2. In the result section of the test report, the following attributes should be present for each test scenario. a. KPIs MUST be documented separately for each test scenario. The format of the KPI metrics should be presented as described in Section 6.1. b. The next level of details SHOULD be graphs showing each of these metrics over the duration (sustain phase) of the test. This allows the user to see the measured performance stability changes over time. 6.1. Key Performance Indicators This section lists key performance indicators (KPIs) for overall benchmarking test scenarios. All KPIs MUST be measured during the sustain phase of the traffic load profile described in Section 4.3.4. All KPIs MUST be measured from the result output of test equipment. o Concurrent TCP Connections This KPI measures the average concurrent open TCP connections in the sustaining period. o TCP Connections Per Second This KPI measures the average established TCP connections per second in the sustaining period. Also this KPI measures average established and terminated TCP connections per second simultaneously for the test scenarios "TCP/HTTP(S) Connection Per Second" defined in Section 7.2 and Section 7.6. o Application Transactions Per Second This KPI measures the average successfully completed application transactions per second in the sustaining period. o TLS Handshake Rate This KPI measures the average TLS 1.2 or higher session formation rate within the sustaining period. o Throughput This KPI measures the average Layer 2 throughput within the sustaining period as well as average packets per seconds within the same period. The value of throughput SHOULD be presented in Gbit/s rounded to two places of precision with a more specific Kbit/s in parenthesis. Optionally, goodput MAY also be logged as an average goodput rate measured over the same period. Goodput result SHALL also be presented in the same format as throughput. o URL Response time / Time to Last Byte (TTLB) Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 20] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 This KPI measures the minimum, average and maximum per URL response time in the sustaining period. The latency is measured at Client and in this case, would be the time duration between sending a GET request from Client and the receival of the complete response from the server. o Time to First Byte (TTFB) This KPI will measure minimum, average and maximum the time to first byte. TTFB is the elapsed time between sending the SYN packet from the client and receiving the first byte of application date from the DUT/SUT. TTFB SHOULD be expressed in millisecond. 7. Benchmarking Tests 7.1. Throughput Performance With Application Traffic Mix 7.1.1. Objective Using a relevant application traffic mix, determine the maximum sustainable throughput performance supported by the DUT/SUT. Based on customer use case, users can choose the application traffic mix for this test. The details about the traffic mix MUST be documented in the report. At least the following traffic mix details MUST be documented and reported together with the test results: Name of applications and layer 7 protocols Percentage of emulated traffic for each application and layer 7 protocols Percentage of encrypted traffic and used cipher suites and keys (The RECOMMENDED ciphers and keys are defined in Section 4.3.1.3) Used object sizes for each application and layer 7 protocols 7.1.2. Test Setup Testbed setup MUST be configured as defined in Section 4. Any test scenario specific test bed configuration changes MUST be documented. 7.1.3. Test Parameters In this section, the test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 21] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.1.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. In case the DUT is configured without SSL inspection feature, the test report MUST explain the implications of this to the relevant application traffic mix encrypted traffic. 7.1.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be noted for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Target throughput: It can be defined based on requirements. Otherwise, it represents aggregated line rate of interface(s) used in the DUT/SUT Initial throughput: 10% of the "Target throughput" One of the ciphers and keys defined in Section 4.3.1.3 are RECOMMENDED to use for this test scenario. 7.1.3.3. Traffic Profile Traffic profile: Test scenario MUST be run with a relevant application traffic mix profile. 7.1.3.4. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile. a. Number of failed application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of total attempt transactions b. Number of Terminated TCP connections due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 connections) of total initiated TCP connections Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 22] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.1.3.5. Measurement Following KPI metrics MUST be reported for this test scenario. Mandatory KPIs: average Throughput, TTFB (minimum, average, and maximum), TTLB (minimum, average, and maximum) and average Application Transactions Per Second Note: TTLB MUST be reported along with min, max, and avg object size used in the traffic profile. Optional KPIs: average TCP Connections Per Second and average TLS Handshake Rate 7.1.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedures are designed to measure the throughput performance of the DUT/SUT at the sustaining period of traffic load profile. The test procedure consists of three major steps. 7.1.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Configure traffic load profile of the test equipment to generate test traffic at the "Initial throughput" rate as described in the parameters Section 7.1.3.2. The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition as described in Section 4.3.4. The DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial throughput" during the sustain phase. Measure all KPI as defined in Section 7.1.3.5. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet validation criteria "a" and "b" defined in Section 7.1.3.4. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to step 2. 7.1.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective Configure test equipment to generate traffic at the "Target throughput" rate defined in the parameter table. The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition as described in Section 4.3.4. The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of KPI metric measurements SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 23] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 The DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired target throughput during the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs MUST meet all validation criteria. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.1.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum and average achievable throughput within the validation criteria. Final test iteration MUST be performed for the test duration defined in Section 4.3.4. 7.2. TCP/HTTP Connections Per Second 7.2.1. Objective Using HTTP traffic, determine the maximum sustainable TCP connection establishment rate supported by the DUT/SUT under different throughput load conditions. To measure connections per second, test iterations MUST use different fixed HTTP response object sizes defined in Section 7.2.3.2. 7.2.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. MUST be documented. 7.2.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.2.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. 7.2.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 24] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Target connections per second: Initial value from product datasheet (if known) Initial connections per second: 10% of "Target connections per second" (an optional parameter for documentation) The client SHOULD negotiate HTTP 1.1 and close the connection with FIN immediately after completion of one transaction. In each test iteration, client MUST send GET command requesting a fixed HTTP response object size. The RECOMMENDED response object sizes are 1, 2, 4, 16, 64 KByte 7.2.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile. a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of total attempt transactions b. Number of Terminated TCP connections due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 connections) of total initiated TCP connections c. During the sustain phase, traffic should be forwarded at a constant rate d. Concurrent TCP connections MUST be constant during steady state and any deviation of concurrent TCP connections SHOULD be less than 10%. This confirms the DUT opens and closes TCP connections almost at the same rate 7.2.3.4. Measurement Following KPI metric MUST be reported for each test iteration. average TCP Connections Per Second Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 25] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.2.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure the TCP connections per second rate of the DUT/SUT at the sustaining period of the traffic load profile. The test procedure consists of three major steps. This test procedure MAY be repeated multiple times with different IP types; IPv4 only, IPv6 only and IPv4 and IPv6 mixed traffic distribution. 7.2.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Configure the traffic load profile of the test equipment to establish "initial connections per second" as defined in the parameters Section 7.2.3.2. The traffic load profile SHOULD be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. The DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial connections per second" before the sustain phase. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet validation criteria a, b, c, and d defined in Section 7.2.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". 7.2.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective Configure test equipment to establish "Target connections per second" defined in the parameters table. The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition as described in Section 4.3.4. During the ramp up and sustain phase of each test iteration, other KPIs such as throughput, concurrent TCP connections and application transactions per second MUST NOT reach to the maximum value the DUT/ SUT can support. The test results for specific test iterations SHOULD NOT be reported, if the above mentioned KPI (especially throughput) reaches the maximum value. (Example: If the test iteration with 64 KByte of HTTP response object size reached the maximum throughput limitation of the DUT, the test iteration MAY be interrupted and the result for 64 KByte SHOULD NOT be reported). The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 26] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 The DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired target connections per second rate at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs MUST meet all validation criteria. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.2.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum and average achievable connections per second within the validation criteria. 7.3. HTTP Throughput 7.3.1. Objective Determine the throughput for HTTP transactions varying the HTTP response object size. 7.3.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. must be documented. 7.3.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.3.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. 7.3.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 27] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Target Throughput: Initial value from product datasheet (if known) Initial Throughput: 10% of "Target Throughput" (an optional parameter for documentation) Number of HTTP response object requests (transactions) per connection: 10 RECOMMENDED HTTP response object size: 1 KByte, 16 KByte, 64 KByte, 256 KByte and mixed objects defined in the table +---------------------+---------------------+ | Object size (KByte) | Number of requests/ | | | Weight | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 0.2 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 6 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 8 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 9 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 10 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 25 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 26 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 35 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 59 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 347 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ Table 4: Mixed Objects 7.3.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of attempt transactions. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 28] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 b. Traffic should be forwarded constantly. c. Concurrent TCP connections MUST be constant during steady state and any deviation of concurrent TCP connections SHOULD be less than 10%. This confirms the DUT opens and closes TCP connections almost at the same rate 7.3.3.4. Measurement The KPI metrics MUST be reported for this test scenario: average Throughput and average HTTP Transactions per Second 7.3.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure HTTP throughput of the DUT/ SUT. The test procedure consists of three major steps. This test procedure MAY be repeated multiple times with different IPv4 and IPv6 traffic distribution and HTTP response object sizes. 7.3.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Configure traffic load profile of the test equipment to establish "Initial Throughput" as defined in the parameters Section 7.3.3.2. The traffic load profile SHOULD be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. The DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial Throughput" during the sustain phase. Measure all KPI as defined in Section 7.3.3.4. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the validation criteria "a" defined in Section 7.3.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". 7.3.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. The DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired "Target Throughput" at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs must meet all validation criteria. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 29] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Perform the test separately for each HTTP response object size. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.3.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum and average achievable throughput within the validation criteria. Final test iteration MUST be performed for the test duration defined in Section 4.3.4. 7.4. TCP/HTTP Transaction Latency 7.4.1. Objective Using HTTP traffic, determine the average HTTP transaction latency when DUT is running with sustainable HTTP transactions per second supported by the DUT/SUT under different HTTP response object sizes. Test iterations MUST be performed with different HTTP response object sizes in two different scenarios.one with a single transaction and the other with multiple transactions within a single TCP connection. For consistency both the single and multiple transaction test MUST be configured with HTTP 1.1. Scenario 1: The client MUST negotiate HTTP 1.1 and close the connection with FIN immediately after completion of a single transaction (GET and RESPONSE). Scenario 2: The client MUST negotiate HTTP 1.1 and close the connection FIN immediately after completion of 10 transactions (GET and RESPONSE) within a single TCP connection. 7.4.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. MUST be documented. 7.4.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.4.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 30] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.4.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3 . Following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Target objective for scenario 1: 50% of the maximum connection per second measured in test scenario TCP/HTTP Connections Per Second (Section 7.2) Target objective for scenario 2: 50% of the maximum throughput measured in test scenario HTTP Throughput (Section 7.3) Initial objective for scenario 1: 10% of Target objective for scenario 1" (an optional parameter for documentation) Initial objective for scenario 2: 10% of "Target objective for scenario 2" (an optional parameter for documentation) HTTP transaction per TCP connection: test scenario 1 with single transaction and the second scenario with 10 transactions HTTP 1.1 with GET command requesting a single object. The RECOMMENDED object sizes are 1, 16 or 64 KByte. For each test iteration, client MUST request a single HTTP response object size. 7.4.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile. Ramp up and ramp down phase SHOULD NOT be considered. Generic criteria: a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of attempt transactions. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 31] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 b. Number of Terminated TCP connections due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 connections) of total initiated TCP connections c. During the sustain phase, traffic should be forwarded at a constant rate. d. Concurrent TCP connections MUST be constant during steady state and any deviation of concurrent TCP connections SHOULD be less than 10%. This confirms the DUT opens and closes TCP connections almost at the same rate e. After ramp up the DUT MUST achieve the "Target objective" defined in the parameter Section 7.4.3.2 and remain in that state for the entire test duration (sustain phase). 7.4.3.4. Measurement Following KPI metrics MUST be reported for each test scenario and HTTP response object sizes separately: TTFB (minimum, average and maximum) and TTLB (minimum, average and maximum) All KPI's are measured once the target throughput achieves the steady state. 7.4.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure the average application transaction latencies or TTLB when the DUT is operating close to 50% of its maximum achievable throughput or connections per second. This test procedure CAN be repeated multiple times with different IP types (IPv4 only, IPv6 only and IPv4 and IPv6 mixed traffic distribution), HTTP response object sizes and single and multiple transactions per connection scenarios. 7.4.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Configure traffic load profile of the test equipment to establish "Initial objective" as defined in the parameters Section 7.4.3.2. The traffic load profile can be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 32] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 The DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial objective" before the sustain phase. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the validation criteria a, b, c, d, e and f defined in Section 7.4.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". 7.4.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective Configure test equipment to establish "Target objective" defined in the parameters table. The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition as described in Section 4.3.4. During the ramp up and sustain phase, other KPIs such as throughput, concurrent TCP connections and application transactions per second MUST NOT reach to the maximum value that the DUT/SUT can support. The test results for specific test iterations SHOULD NOT be reported, if the above mentioned KPI (especially throughput) reaches to the maximum value. (Example: If the test iteration with 64 KByte of HTTP response object size reached the maximum throughput limitation of the DUT, the test iteration MAY be interrupted and the result for 64 KByte SHOULD NOT be reported). The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired "Target objective" at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs MUST meet all validation criteria. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.4.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum achievable connections per second within the validation criteria and measure the latency values. 7.5. Concurrent TCP/HTTP Connection Capacity 7.5.1. Objective Determine the maximum number of concurrent TCP connections that the DUT/ SUT sustains when using HTTP traffic. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 33] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.5.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. must be documented. 7.5.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.5.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. 7.5.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be noted for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Target concurrent connection: Initial value from product datasheet (if known) Initial concurrent connection: 10% of "Target concurrent connection" (an optional parameter for documentation) Maximum connections per second during ramp up phase: 50% of maximum connections per second measured in test scenario TCP/HTTP Connections per second (Section 7.2) Ramp up time (in traffic load profile for "Target concurrent connection"): "Target concurrent connection" / "Maximum connections per second during ramp up phase" Ramp up time (in traffic load profile for "Initial concurrent connection"): "Initial concurrent connection" / "Maximum connections per second during ramp up phase" Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 34] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 The client MUST negotiate HTTP 1.1 with persistence and each client MAY open multiple concurrent TCP connections per server endpoint IP. Each client sends 10 GET commands requesting 1 KByte HTTP response object in the same TCP connection (10 transactions/TCP connection) and the delay (think time) between the transaction MUST be X seconds. X = ("Ramp up time" + "steady state time") /10 The established connections SHOULD remain open until the ramp down phase of the test. During the ramp down phase, all connections SHOULD be successfully closed with FIN. 7.5.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile. a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transaction) of total attempted transactions b. Number of Terminated TCP connections due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 connections) of total initiated TCP connections c. During the sustain phase, traffic SHOULD be forwarded constantly 7.5.3.4. Measurement Following KPI metric MUST be reported for this test scenario: average Concurrent TCP Connections 7.5.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure the concurrent TCP connection capacity of the DUT/SUT at the sustaining period of traffic load profile. The test procedure consists of three major steps. This test procedure MAY be repeated multiple times with different IPv4 and IPv6 traffic distribution. 7.5.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 35] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Configure test equipment to establish "Initial concurrent TCP connections" defined in Section 7.5.3.2. Except ramp up time, the traffic load profile SHOULD be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. During the sustain phase, the DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial concurrent TCP connections". The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the validation criteria "a" and "b" defined in Section 7.5.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". 7.5.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective Configure test equipment to establish "Target concurrent TCP connections". The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition (except ramp up time) as described in Section 4.3.4. During the ramp up and sustain phase, the other KPIs such as throughput, TCP connections per second and application transactions per second MUST NOT reach to the maximum value that the DUT/SUT can support. The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record KPIs defined in Section 7.5.3.4. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. The DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired target concurrent connection at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs must meet all validation criteria. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.5.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum and average achievable concurrent TCP connections capacity within the validation criteria. 7.6. TCP/HTTPS Connections per Second 7.6.1. Objective Using HTTPS traffic, determine the maximum sustainable SSL/TLS session establishment rate supported by the DUT/SUT under different throughput load conditions. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 36] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Test iterations MUST include common cipher suites and key strengths as well as forward looking stronger keys. Specific test iterations MUST include ciphers and keys defined in Section 7.6.3.2. For each cipher suite and key strengths, test iterations MUST use a single HTTPS response object size defined in the test equipment configuration parameters Section 7.6.3.2 to measure connections per second performance under a variety of DUT Security inspection load conditions. 7.6.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. MUST be documented. 7.6.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.6.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. 7.6.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Target connections per second: Initial value from product datasheet (if known) Initial connections per second: 10% of "Target connections per second" (an optional parameter for documentation) RECOMMENDED ciphers and keys defined in Section 4.3.1.3 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 37] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 The client MUST negotiate HTTPS 1.1 and close the connection with FIN immediately after completion of one transaction. In each test iteration, client MUST send GET command requesting a fixed HTTPS response object size. The RECOMMENDED object sizes are 1, 2, 4, 16, 64 KByte. 7.6.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria: a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of attempt transactions b. Number of Terminated TCP connections due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 connections) of total initiated TCP connections c. During the sustain phase, traffic should be forwarded at a constant rate d. Concurrent TCP connections MUST be constant during steady state and any deviation of concurrent TCP connections SHOULD be less than 10%. This confirms the DUT opens and closes TCP connections almost at the same rate 7.6.3.4. Measurement Following KPI metrics MUST be reported for this test scenario: average TCP Connections Per Second, average TLS Handshake Rate (TLS Handshake Rate can be measured in the test scenario using 1KB object size) 7.6.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure the TCP connections per second rate of the DUT/SUT at the sustaining period of traffic load profile. The test procedure consists of three major steps. This test procedure MAY be repeated multiple times with different IPv4 and IPv6 traffic distribution. 7.6.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 38] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Configure traffic load profile of the test equipment to establish "Initial connections per second" as defined in Section 7.6.3.2. The traffic load profile CAN be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. The DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial connections per second" before the sustain phase. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the validation criteria a, b, c, and d defined in Section 7.6.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". 7.6.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective Configure test equipment to establish "Target connections per second" defined in the parameters table. The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition as described in Section 4.3.4. During the ramp up and sustain phase, other KPIs such as throughput, concurrent TCP connections and application transactions per second MUST NOT reach the maximum value that the DUT/SUT can support. The test results for specific test iteration SHOULD NOT be reported, if the above mentioned KPI (especially throughput) reaches the maximum value. (Example: If the test iteration with 64 KByte of HTTPS response object size reached the maximum throughput limitation of the DUT, the test iteration can be interrupted and the result for 64 KByte SHOULD NOT be reported). The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. The DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired target connections per second rate at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs must meet all validation criteria. Follow the step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.6.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum and average achievable connections per second within the validation criteria. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 39] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.7. HTTPS Throughput 7.7.1. Objective Determine the throughput for HTTPS transactions varying the HTTPS response object size. Test iterations MUST include common cipher suites and key strengths as well as forward looking stronger keys. Specific test iterations MUST include the ciphers and keys defined in the parameter Section 7.7.3.2. 7.7.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. must be documented. 7.7.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.7.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. 7.7.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Target Throughput: Initial value from product datasheet (if known) Initial Throughput: 10% of "Target Throughput" (an optional parameter for documentation) Number of HTTPS response object requests (transactions) per connection: 10 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 40] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 RECOMMENDED ciphers and keys defined in Section 4.3.1.3 RECOMMENDED HTTPS response object size: 1 KByte, 2 KByte, 4 KByte, 16 KByte, 64 KByte, 256 KByte and mixed object defined in the table below. +---------------------+---------------------+ | Object size (KByte) | Number of requests/ | | | Weight | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 0.2 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 6 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 8 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 9 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 10 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 25 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 26 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 35 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 59 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ | 347 | 1 | +---------------------+---------------------+ Table 5: Mixed Objects 7.7.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile. a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of attempt transactions. b. Traffic should be forwarded constantly. c. Concurrent TCP connections MUST be constant during steady state and any deviation of concurrent TCP connections SHOULD be less Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 41] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 than 10%. This confirms the DUT opens and closes TCP connections almost at the same rate 7.7.3.4. Measurement The KPI metrics MUST be reported for this test scenario: average Throughput and average HTTPS Transactions Per Second 7.7.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure consists of three major steps. This test procedure MAY be repeated multiple times with different IPv4 and IPv6 traffic distribution and HTTPS response object sizes. 7.7.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Configure traffic load profile of the test equipment to establish "initial throughput" as defined in the parameters Section 7.7.3.2. The traffic load profile should be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. The DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial Throughput" during the sustain phase. Measure all KPI as defined in Section 7.7.3.4. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the validation criteria "a" defined in Section 7.7.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". 7.7.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. The DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired "Target Throughput" at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs MUST meet all validation criteria. Perform the test separately for each HTTPS response object size. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 42] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.7.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum and average achievable throughput within the validation criteria. Final test iteration MUST be performed for the test duration defined in Section 4.3.4. 7.8. HTTPS Transaction Latency 7.8.1. Objective Using HTTPS traffic, determine the average HTTPS transaction latency when DUT is running with sustainable HTTPS transactions per second supported by the DUT/SUT under different HTTPS response object size. Scenario 1: The client MUST negotiate HTTPS and close the connection with FIN immediately after completion of a single transaction (GET and RESPONSE). Scenario 2: The client MUST negotiate HTTPS and close the connection with FIN immediately after completion of 10 transactions (GET and RESPONSE) within a single TCP connection. 7.8.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. MUST be documented. 7.8.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.8.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. 7.8.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 43] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 RECOMMENDED cipher suites and key sizes defined in Section 4.3.1.3 Target objective for scenario 1: 50% of the maximum connections per second measured in test scenario TCP/HTTPS Connections per second (Section 7.6) Target objective for scenario 2: 50% of the maximum throughput measured in test scenario HTTPS Throughput (Section 7.7) Initial objective for scenario 1: 10% of Target objective for scenario 1" (an optional parameter for documentation) Initial objective for scenario 2: 10% of "Target objective for scenario 2" (an optional parameter for documentation) HTTPS transaction per TCP connection: test scenario 1 with single transaction and the second scenario with 10 transactions HTTPS 1.1 with GET command requesting a single 1, 16 or 64 KByte object. For each test iteration, client MUST request a single HTTPS response object size. 7.8.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile. Ramp up and ramp down phase SHOULD NOT be considered. Generic criteria: a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of attempt transactions. b. Number of Terminated TCP connections due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 connections) of total initiated TCP connections c. During the sustain phase, traffic should be forwarded at a constant rate. d. Concurrent TCP connections MUST be constant during steady state and any deviation of concurrent TCP connections SHOULD be less Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 44] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 than 10%. This confirms the DUT opens and closes TCP connections almost at the same rate e. After ramp up the DUT MUST achieve the "Target objective" defined in the parameter Section 7.8.3.2 and remain in that state for the entire test duration (sustain phase). 7.8.3.4. Measurement Following KPI metrics MUST be reported for each test scenario and HTTPS response object sizes separately: TTFB (minimum, average and maximum) and TTLB (minimum, average and maximum) All KPI's are measured once the target connections per second achieves the steady state. 7.8.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure average TTFB or TTLB when the DUT is operating close to 50% of its maximum achievable connections per second. This test procedure can be repeated multiple times with different IP types (IPv4 only, IPv6 only and IPv4 and IPv6 mixed traffic distribution), HTTPS response object sizes and single and multiple transactions per connection scenarios. 7.8.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Configure traffic load profile of the test equipment to establish "Initial objective" as defined in the parameters Section 7.8.3.2. The traffic load profile can be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. The DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial objective" before the sustain phase. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the validation criteria a, b, c, d, e and f defined in Section 7.8.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 45] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.8.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective Configure test equipment to establish "Target objective" defined in the parameters table. The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition as described in Section 4.3.4. During the ramp up and sustain phase, other KPIs such as throughput, concurrent TCP connections and application transactions per second MUST NOT reach to the maximum value that the DUT/SUT can support. The test results for specific test iterations SHOULD NOT be reported, if the above mentioned KPI (especially throughput) reaches to the maximum value. (Example: If the test iteration with 64 KByte of HTTP response object size reached the maximum throughput limitation of the DUT, the test iteration MAY be interrupted and the result for 64 KByte SHOULD NOT be reported). The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired "Target objective" at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs MUST meet all validation criteria. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.8.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum achievable connections per second within the validation criteria and measure the latency values. 7.9. Concurrent TCP/HTTPS Connection Capacity 7.9.1. Objective Determine the maximum number of concurrent TCP connections that the DUT/SUT sustains when using HTTPS traffic. 7.9.2. Test Setup Test bed setup SHOULD be configured as defined in Section 4. Any specific test bed configuration changes such as number of interfaces and interface type, etc. MUST be documented. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 46] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 7.9.3. Test Parameters In this section, test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. 7.9.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. Any configuration changes for this specific test scenario MUST be documented. 7.9.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. Following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: Client IP address range defined in Section 4.3.1.2 Server IP address range defined in Section 4.3.2.2 Traffic distribution ratio between IPv4 and IPv6 defined in Section 4.3.1.2 RECOMMENDED cipher suites and key sizes defined in Section 4.3.1.3 Target concurrent connections: Initial value from product datasheet (if known) Initial concurrent connections: 10% of "Target concurrent connections" (an optional parameter for documentation) Connections per second during ramp up phase: 50% of maximum connections per second measured in test scenario TCP/HTTPS Connections per second (Section 7.6) Ramp up time (in traffic load profile for "Target concurrent connections"): "Target concurrent connections" / "Maximum connections per second during ramp up phase" Ramp up time (in traffic load profile for "Initial concurrent connections"): "Initial concurrent connections" / "Maximum connections per second during ramp up phase" The client MUST perform HTTPS transaction with persistence and each client can open multiple concurrent TCP connections per server endpoint IP. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 47] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Each client sends 10 GET commands requesting 1 KByte HTTPS response objects in the same TCP connections (10 transactions/TCP connection) and the delay (think time) between each transactions MUST be X seconds. X = ("Ramp up time" + "steady state time") /10 The established connections SHOULD remain open until the ramp down phase of the test. During the ramp down phase, all connections SHOULD be successfully closed with FIN. 7.9.3.3. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole sustain phase of the traffic load profile. a. Number of failed Application transactions (receiving any HTTP response code other than 200 OK) MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 transactions) of total attempted transactions b. Number of Terminated TCP connections due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT MUST be less than 0.001% (1 out of 100,000 connections) of total initiated TCP connections c. During the sustain phase, traffic SHOULD be forwarded constantly 7.9.3.4. Measurement Following KPI metric MUST be reported for this test scenario: average Concurrent TCP Connections 7.9.4. Test Procedures and Expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure the concurrent TCP connection capacity of the DUT/SUT at the sustaining period of traffic load profile. The test procedure consists of three major steps. This test procedure MAY be repeated multiple times with different IPv4 and IPv6 traffic distribution. 7.9.4.1. Step 1: Test Initialization and Qualification Verify the link status of all connected physical interfaces. All interfaces are expected to be in "UP" status. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 48] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Configure test equipment to establish "initial concurrent TCP connections" defined in Section 7.9.3.2. Except ramp up time, the traffic load profile SHOULD be defined as described in Section 4.3.4. During the sustain phase, the DUT/SUT SHOULD reach the "Initial concurrent TCP connections". The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the validation criteria "a" and "b" defined in Section 7.9.3.3. If the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". 7.9.4.2. Step 2: Test Run with Target Objective Configure test equipment to establish "Target concurrent TCP connections". The test equipment SHOULD follow the traffic load profile definition (except ramp up time) as described in Section 4.3.4. During the ramp up and sustain phase, the other KPIs such as throughput, TCP connections per second and application transactions per second MUST NOT reach to the maximum value that the DUT/SUT can support. The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record KPIs defined in Section 7.9.3.4. The frequency of measurement SHOULD be 2 seconds. Continue the test until all traffic profile phases are completed. The DUT/SUT is expected to reach the desired target concurrent connections at the sustain phase. In addition, the measured KPIs MUST meet all validation criteria. Follow step 3, if the KPI metrics do not meet the validation criteria. 7.9.4.3. Step 3: Test Iteration Determine the maximum and average achievable concurrent TCP connections within the validation criteria. 8. IANA Considerations This document makes no request of IANA. Note to RFC Editor: this section may be removed on publication as an RFC. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 49] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 9. Security Considerations The primary goal of this document is to provide benchmarking terminology and methodology for next-generation network security devices. However, readers should be aware that there is some overlap between performance and security issues. Specifically, the optimal configuration for network security device performance may not be the most secure, and vice-versa. The Cipher suites recommended in this document are just for test purpose only. The Cipher suite recommendation for a real deployment is outside the scope of this document. 10. Contributors The following individuals contributed significantly to the creation of this document: Alex Samonte, Amritam Putatunda, Aria Eslambolchizadeh, David DeSanto, Jurrie Van Den Breekel, Ryan Liles, Samaresh Nair, Stephen Goudreault, and Tim Otto 11. Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the members of NetSecOPEN for their participation in the creation of this document. Additionally the following members need to be acknowledged: Anand Vijayan, Baski Mohan, Chao Guo, Chris Brown, Chris Marshall, Jay Lindenauer, Michael Shannon, Mike Deichman, Ray Vinson, Ryan Riese, Tim Carlin, Tim Otto and Toulnay Orkun 12. References 12.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 50] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 12.2. Informative References [RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, DOI 10.17487/RFC2616, June 1999, . [RFC2647] Newman, D., "Benchmarking Terminology for Firewall Performance", RFC 2647, DOI 10.17487/RFC2647, August 1999, . [RFC3511] Hickman, B., Newman, D., Tadjudin, S., and T. Martin, "Benchmarking Methodology for Firewall Performance", RFC 3511, DOI 10.17487/RFC3511, April 2003, . [RFC5681] Allman, M., Paxson, V., and E. Blanton, "TCP Congestion Control", RFC 5681, DOI 10.17487/RFC5681, September 2009, . Appendix A. Test Methodology - Security Effectiveness Evaluation A.1. Test Objective This test methodology verifies the DUT/SUT is able to detect, prevent and report the vulnerabilities. In this test, background test traffic will be generated in order to utilize the DUT/SUT. In parallel, the CVEs will be sent to the DUT/ SUT as encrypted and as well as clear text payload formats using a traffic generator. The selection of the CVEs is described in Section 4.2.1. o Number of blocked CVEs o Number of bypassed (nonblocked) CVEs o Background traffic performance (verify if the background traffic is impacted while sending CVE toward DUT/SUT) o Accuracy of DUT/SUT statistics in term of vulnerabilities reporting Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 51] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 A.2. Testbed setup The same Testbed MUST be used for security effectiveness test and as well as for benchmarking test cases defined in Section 7. A.3. Test Parameters In this section, the test scenario specific parameters SHOULD be defined. A.3.1. DUT/SUT Configuration Parameters DUT/SUT configuration Parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.2. The same DUT configuration MUST be used for Security effectiveness test and as well as for benchmarking test cases defined in Section 7. The DUT/SUT MUST be configured in inline mode and all detected attack traffic MUST be dropped and the session Should be reset A.3.2. Test Equipment Configuration Parameters Test equipment configuration parameters MUST conform to the requirements defined in Section 4.3. The same Client and server IP ranges MUST be configured as used in the benchmarking test cases. In addition, the following parameters MUST be documented for this test scenario: o Background Traffic: 45% of maximum HTTP throughput and 45% of Maximum HTTPS throughput supported by the DUT/SUT (measured with object size 64 KByte in the test scenarios "HTTP(S) Throughput" defined in Section 7.3 and Section 7.7. o RECOMMENDED CVE traffic transmission Rate: 10 CVEs per second o RECOMMEND to generate each CVE multiple times (sequentially) at 10 CVEs per second o Ciphers and Keys for the encrypted CVE traffic MUST use the same cipher configured for HTTPS traffic related benchmarking test scenarios (Section 7.6 - Section 7.9) A.4. Test Results Validation Criteria The following test Criteria is defined as test results validation criteria. Test results validation criteria MUST be monitored during the whole test duration. Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 52] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 a. Number of failed Application transaction in the background traffic MUST be less than 0.01% of attempted transactions b. Number of Terminated TCP connections of the background traffic (due to unexpected TCP RST sent by DUT/SUT) MUST be less than 0.01% of total initiated TCP connections in the background traffic c. During the sustain phase, traffic should be forwarded at a constant rate d. False positive MUST NOT occur in the background traffic A.5. Measurement Following KPI metrics MUST be reported for this test scenario: Mandatory KPIs: o Blocked CVEs: It should be represented in the following ways: * Number of blocked CVEs out of total CVEs * Percentage of blocked CVEs o Unblocked CVEs: It should be represented in the following ways: * Number of unblocked CVEs out of total CVEs * Percentage of unblocked CVEs o Background traffic behavior: it should represent one of the followings ways: * No impact (traffic transmission at a constant rate) * Minor impact (e.g. small spikes- +/- 100 Mbit/s) * Heavily impacted (e.g. large spikes and reduced the background throughput > 100 Mbit/s) o DUT/SUT reporting accuracy: DUT/SUT MUST report all detected vulnerabilities. Optional KPIs: o List of unblocked CVEs Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 53] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 A.6. Test Procedures and expected Results The test procedure is designed to measure the security effectiveness of the DUT/SUT at the sustaining period of the traffic load profile. The test procedure consists of two major steps. This test procedure MAY be repeated multiple times with different IPv4 and IPv6 traffic distribution. A.6.1. Step 1: Background traffic Generate the background traffic at the transmission rate defined in the parameter section. The DUT/SUT MUST reach the target objective (throughput) in sustain phase. The measured KPIs during the sustain phase MUST meet the test validation criteria a, b, c and d defined in Appendix A.4. If the KPI metrics do not meet the acceptance criteria, the test procedure MUST NOT be continued to "Step 2". A.6.2. Step 2: CVE emulation While generating the background traffic (in sustain phase), send the CVE traffic as defined in the parameter section. The test equipment SHOULD start to measure and record all specified KPIs. The frequency of measurement MUST be less than 2 seconds. Continue the test until all CVEs are sent. The measured KPIs MUST meet all test validation criteria a, b, c, and d defined in Appendix A.4. In addition, the DUT/SUT SHOULD report the vulnerabilities correctly. Authors' Addresses Balamuhunthan Balarajah Berlin Germany Email: bm.balarajah@gmail.com Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 54] Internet-Draft Benchmarking for NGFW performance October 2020 Carsten Rossenhoevel EANTC AG Salzufer 14 Berlin 10587 Germany Email: cross@eantc.de Brian Monkman NetSecOPEN 417 Independence Court Mechanicsburg, PA 17050 USA Email: bmonkman@netsecopen.org Balarajah, et al. Expires May 3, 2021 [Page 55]