The present document specifies performance benchmarking metrics for virtual switching, with the goal that the metrics will adequately quantify performance gains achieved through virtual switch acceleration conforming to the associated requirements specified herein. The acceleration-related requirements will be applicable to common virtual switching functions across usage models such as packet delivery into VNFs, network overlay and tunnel termination, stateful Network Address Translators (NAT), service chaining, load balancing and, in general, match-action based policies/flows applied to traffic going to/from the VMs. The present document will also provide deployment scenarios with applicability to multiple vendor implementations and recommendations for follow-on proof of concept activities.