Infrastructure as a Service: Benchmarking Cloud Computing
by Johan De Gelas on June 2, 2011 8:50 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- IT Computing general
- Cloud Computing
vApus Mark II
vApus Mark II is our newest benchmark suite that tests how well servers cope with virtualizing "heavy duty" applications; we've previously explained the benchmark methodology. However, we made a few changes to make this benchmark suitable for a cloud environment. The OLTP test, the freely available test "Calling Circle" of the Oracle Swingbench Suite, was not included. The OLTP test requires SSDs or a large amount of SAS drives and this would make it costly to run such a test on rented hardware. Thus, our scores are not directly comparable to other servers we have tested in the past, but the chart below uses the same test setup for all servers.
It is little surprise that our reference server is able to offer the best performance. We have four VMs requesting the power of 14 virtual CPUs, so the server has ample resources to satisfy this request. As a result, 14 physical cores of 2.26GHz are allocated, good for 31.6GHz of CPU power. This is our upper limit.
Next is the Terremark cluster in burst mode. We only reserved 10GHz, but the Terremark cluster is able to offer an extra 80% of CPU power on average. The result is that the Terremark cluster is able to offer about 70% of the throughput of the "in house" server. That is pretty good: we only pay for 10GHz most of the time and although the extra 80% comes at a premium cost, we only pay for the times where we actually need it.
Finally, let us compare the two similar setups, the "native server" with a 10GHz resource pool and the Terremark servers with a similar limitation. Once again, the Terremark virtual servers achieve about 70% of the throughput. That is not superb but it's not bad either. Even if Terremark ensures that every 10GHz of CPU power allocated is backed up with real physical processing power, the Terremark cluster has to manage more virtual machines and thus the overhead is higher than on our test machine that has to manage only our test virtual machines.
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Mxlasm - Friday, June 3, 2011 - link
This question is probably not to Anand but to some fellow readers who may wish to educate the uneducated :)In the setup descibed, can one virtual computer/OS span many physical systems? Can someone please point me to a good (wiki?) article about how that is done? There are many text about the subject of virtualization in general, but hard to nail some specific questions.
Also, how many cores max can one virtual system get? Or, in other words, if the physical system has so many cores, can you request more cores, and how can your virtual system can be efficiently scaled up if you are already reaching the max of one physical server?
Thanks!
bobbozzo - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link
Currently, a single virtual server cannot span more than one physical server, BUT VMs can be MIGRATED between multiple physical servers in case one physical server is too busy or is failing.You can pretend you have more cores than you really do by limiting the GHz for each VM, or possibly by just over-allocating VMs and hoping they don't all get busy at once.
Regardless, if the server is maxed out, all you can do to get more performance is to migrate VMs to another server.
HMTK - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
vSphere can currently use 6 or 12 CPU CORES (HT does not count as a core) per physical CPU. The exact number is determined by licensing. If you want to use 12 cores be prepared to pay a lot. Personally I think this is idiotic and hopefully VMware changes this in vSphere 5 later this year.VM's can use 4 or 8 vCPU's with 8 vCPU's limited to the expensive Enterprise Plus SKU.
Kid98 - Sunday, June 5, 2011 - link
You don't have to look very hard to find others with similar solutions. (cloudshare.com is one)Seems a bit like Terremark is being presented as the premier choice. How can that be ascertained without comparison to others?
Kid
sushanthr77 - Tuesday, June 7, 2011 - link
Thanks for the excellent article. Most articles about cloud are too vague and dwell into the abstracts that the details. This was well structured and presented.ProDigit - Sunday, June 12, 2011 - link
I find cloud computing nothing more than taking a bus or train in public transport!The caveats are more than the benefits. There's nothing like having your own vehicle to drive!
So with computing!
Have your own hardware, and don't depend on your internet connection to provide what hardware should!
vinaywagh - Wednesday, June 29, 2011 - link
I enjoyed reading this article. But what it lacks is a cost benefit analysis. If I were to setup a small datacenter today, I would need to hire IT engineers and pay for the power and space for it which would cost me $x. What I want to know is to get the same performance as the local server, what would it cost me to move it to the cloud ?vlang :: crmhelpdesksoftware.com - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
Thank you for details re Terremark from your perspective.ShirleyBurnell - Friday, September 20, 2019 - link
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