Re: [Xen-devel] A Performance Comparison of Hypervisors

[Mark Williamson <mark.williamson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > I wonder why you say this.  I thought the benchmark was done very well.
> > What we need is more benchmarking, not less.  Unfortunately, VMware
> > makes publishing benchmarks difficult as you have to get their approval.
>
> ...
>
> > [1] The PV drivers that come in XenEnterprise are, AFAIK, only for
> > XenEnterprise.
>
> The person who did the benchmark might have done a brilliant job, but
> it reads like marketing pamphlet for VMware.  A good test show be
> neutral. Show their best product against Xen's lowest offering is just
> disrespectful.

I had a quick skim through and I'd agree it has a slightly strange feel to 
it...

They do seem to have picked a reasonably low target to beat with 3.0.3, but 
OTOH it demonstrates that their comercial product is worth paying for over 
and above Open Source Xen if you're wanting to run Windows in virtual 
machines.

The numbers don't look ridiculous to me, but nor do the set of tests run give 
a complete picture for all use cases (e.g. paravirt Linux-only, or mixed use 
could have a very different balance).

Good benchmarks don't demonstrate the nice management aspects of VMware ESX, 
which is another factor to consider.

>As you say, the netperf test was silly, a good independent tester
> wouldn't do something like that.
>
> Vmware is very mature. I use both it and Xen and they both work well.
> Xen certainly works better for some jobs than seems to be presented in
> that report.

It'd be nice to see a comparison of VMware ESX vs Open Source Xen vs 
XenEnterprise that contrasted the strengths of each, rather than playing 
exclusively to the strengths of one.  This could serve as an effective 
reference for anyone looking into Enterprise virtualisation - unfortunately 
it would be a huge task even if permission from all parties was obtained :-(

Cheers,
Mark


-- 
Dave: Just a question. What use is a unicyle with no seat?  And no pedals!
Mark: To answer a question with a question: What use is a skateboard?
Dave: Skateboards have wheels.
Mark: My wheel has a wheel!

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