ntions are unique to the service provider or organization that they belong to. 4.5.1 VNF PERFORMANCE PROFILES VNF performance profiles are introduced to provide carrier grade capabilities, for example, mem- ory intensive, high I/O, graphics intensive for different throughput profiles based upon network functions. This is done by utilizing "Accelerated Data Path" methods such as single root input/ output virtualization (SR-IOV) and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) that enhance networking, and processing efficiency technologies such as CPU pinning. SR-IOV enables multiple VMs to share the same peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) device, and presents the network interface card (NIC) virtually to the VM. This performance profile enables network traffic to bypass hypervisors and virtual switches to achieve low latency and improvements in packet processing time. DPDK is a framework for fast packet processing that is performed by abstracting the network interface access. This is called environment abstraction layer (EAL) and provides a standard access to the network interface card, maximizing the network card features such as hardware acceleration. Another way that DPDK increases packet processing performance is the change from interrupt processing to polling processing, which allows the processor to operate more streamlined by not being interrupted every time a packet comes off the wire. Without the use of polling, the network- ing interface card sends an interrupt request (IRQ) to the CPU to request processing time. The CPU stops what it is currently doing, and allows the interrupt handler to process the interrupts based on the IRQ priority. CPU pinning allows the packet processing to be handled by a specific CPU and is also known as processor affinity. Overcoming the hurdles of using general purpose hardware can be done by optimizing the hardware and software to focus more on processing packets. This involves assigning dedicated CPU cores to process packets through the use of CPU pinning and implementin