Router virtualization enables multiple virtual routers to be hosted on a physical shared substrate, and hence facilitates network management and experimentation. One critical issue of router virtualization is resource allocation of virtual routers. We explore this issue in the user-space design in order to allow extensibility. We develop a user-space loadaware virtual router monitor (LVRM) atop a commodity multicore architecture, with a key feature that it can dynamically manage CPU core

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... es among virtual routers based on their traffic loads. Also, LVRM adopts an extensible design so that each component can support different variants of implementation. We implement a proof-of-concept prototype for LVRM and empirically evaluate its performance overhead. Our work provides insights into resource management in user space in the context of router virtualization.