VMmark: A Better Benchmark for Virtualized Systems
The VMmark virtualization benchmark is an innovative solution that gives you complete insight into the performance and scalability of heterogeneous workloads, running on multiple virtual machines, consolidated on a physical server. Use VMmark to monitor the performance of virtual machines and compare the performance of virtualization platforms so that you can make appropriate hardware choices for your virtual infrastructure.
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Key Performance Features of VMware Virtualization
VMware delivers many end-to-end solutions built upon virtualization. The following papers discuss the performance aspects of those end-to-end solutions.
- What’s New in VMware vSphere™ 4: Performance Enhancements
- VMware vSphere™ 4 Fault Tolerance: Architecture and Performance
- VMware vSphere™ 4: The CPU Scheduler in VMware® ESX™ 4
- Performance Evaluation of AMD RVI Hardware Assist
- Performance Evaluation of Intel EPT Hardware Assist
- DRS Performance and Best Practices
- Large Memory Page Performance Characteristics
- Performance of VMware VMI
- Comparison of Storage Protocol Performance
- What's New in VMware Infrastructure 3: Performance Enhancements
- Fast Transparent Migration for Virtual Machines
- Fast ESX Server 2: Architecture and Performance Implications
- HyperThreading Support in VMware ESX Server 2
- VMware ESX Server 2 NUMA Support
Tune and Troubleshoot Virtualization Performance
The performance of the hardware configuration and the host operating system, if used, should be well understood before investigating performance impacts in virtualized execution. Once the native environment is fully comprehended, these tools and guides may help you benchmark VMware solutions.
- Performance Analysis on VMware ESX
- Performance Best Practices and Benchmarking Guidelines for VMware Infrastructure 3.5
- VMware Workstation 5.5: Performance Benchmarking Guidelines
- VMware Workstation 6: Performance Benchmarking Guidelines
- Using esxtop to Troubleshoot Performance Problems
Keep Time Accurately in Virtual Machines
Accurate timekeeping is critical to performance measurement in any system. But virtualization of the underlying hardware can interfere with a guest operating system’s ability to accurately track time. The following documents discuss this issue and the methods for addressing it.
- Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines
- Improving Guest Operating System Accounting for Descheduled Virtual Machines
Gain Insight into Subsystem Performance
Isolate specific points of interest for performance analysis by understanding subsystem performance. These tools can offer insight into the critical performance areas in virtualized execution.
- Understanding Memory Resource Management in VMware® ESX™ Server
- Virtual Machine Monitor Execution Modes in VMware vSphere™ 4.0
- Comparison of Storage Protocol Performance in VMware vSphere 4
- 10Gbps Networking Performance
- Scalable Storage Performance
- Performance Comparison of Virtual Network Devices
- VMware ESX 3.5 Networking Performance
- Performance Characteristics of VMFS and RDM
- VMware ESX Performance and Resource Management for CPU-Intensive Workloads
- Storage Subsystem Performance in VMware ESX: BusLogic Versus LSI Logic
- VMware ESX Server 3.0: Recommendations for Aligning VMFS Partitions
- VMware ESX Server 3.0: Ready Time Observations
- Scheduler Improvements in VMware ESX Server 2.5.3 and ESX Server 3.0
Academic Benchmark Approvals
- Quantifying the Performance Isolation Properties of Virtualization Systems
- Dr. Jeanna Matthews et. al., Clarkson University
- Pragmatics of Virtual Machines for High-Performance Computing
- Paul Lu et. al. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta
- Virtual Machine Memory Access Tracing with Hypervisor Exclusive Cache
- Pin Lau & Kai Shen, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
- VMM-Independent Graphics Acceleration
- H. Andr'es Lagar-Cavilla, University of Toronto, Toronto
- Rapid and Minimally Invasive Deployment of Grid Middleware
- Markus Baumgartner, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, Europe
