Metron
vSphere vs. Hyper-V
Performance Showdown
Objectives
• Architecture • Available metrics
• Challenges in virtual environments • Test environment and methods • Results, conclusions, and caveats
vSphere Architecture
Small hypervisor footprint
Hyper-V Architecture
Windows OS required - Larger footprint
vSphere Memory Management Features Transparent page sharing
Memory borrowing
Memory compression …and Paging
Hyper-V Memory Management Feature Dynamic memory for enlightened Windows VMs
Key Performance Metrics vSphere
Hyper-V
CPU Avg. CPU Usage in MHz CPU Ready Time
CPU Hypervisor Logical Processor % Hypervisor Virtual Processor %
Memory Avg. Memory Usage in KB Balloon KB Swap Used KB Consumed Active
Memory Dynamic Memory Balancer Dynamic Memory Pressure VM Vid Partition
I/O Queue Latency Kernel Latency Device Latency
I/O Virtual Storage Device Virtual Network Adapter
Challenges in Virtual Environments - Clock skew - NUMA (non-uniform memory access) scheduling
- Pass-through I/O - Workload definition - 32 versus 64 bit OS and applications - Where to use solid state I/O devices - Storage tiers
- Hidden overhead - etc...
Test Environment -
AMD Phenom II 3.3 GHz 8 GB RAM 1TB Hitachi 7200 RPM HD SATA 2 interface 1GB Onboard network interface
- vSphere 5 - Hyper-V role installed on Windows 2008 R2 SP1
- 2 x Windows 7 SP1 VM with integration services - 2 x CentOS 6.2 VM with integration services v3.2 - Simple custom benchmarks using ActiveState perl v5.14 - cpu.pl, disk.pl, mem.pl, net.pl
Testing Methods Individual Tests
Hyper-V Hostname Hyper30 Virtual Machines win_25, win_26 centos_11, centos_12 Win7 VMs configured with 512MB min, 64GB max dynamic memory. Centos VMs 2GB. VMs _25, _12 configured with 2 vCPU vSphere Hostname 192.168.0.99
* No Pass-Through
- CPU w/1 process - CPU w/2 process - Disk on 1vCPU VMs - Mem on 1vCPU VMs - Net on 1vCPU VMs
Combined Tests All VMs running CPU and Mem. 2 vCPU VMs running Disk and Net. Each set of testing was run identically on the same host using both hypervisors
Results - Individual VM CPU Surprisingly Win7 on Hyper-V appears slower
Results - Individual VM CPU Extra vCPU no help with one process
Results - Individual VM CPU Twice the work in the same time
Results - Individual VM CPU
Summary of CPU results - Windows CPU performance on Hyper-V was significantly slower - Two vCPUs running a single process had little negative impact
Results - Individual VM Disk Write a 512 MB file
Results - Individual VM Disk Read the 512 MB file
Results - Individual VM Disk Abysmal performance for Windows on Hyper-V
Results - Individual VM Disk
Summary of disk I/O results - Random I/O on a Hyper-V dynamic disk had terrible performance
Results - Individual VM Memory No penalty for dynamic memory
Results - Individual VM Network Slight advantage for vSphere
Results - Combined Test
And now… for the grand finale
All workloads running at the same time on multiple VMs The winner is….
Results - Combined Test Draw - except disk workload on Hyper-V did not finish
CPU Details - Both platforms on the same chart
Detail CPU Metrics
- vSphere VM ready time
- Hyper-V Guest run time
CPU Details - vSphere CPU Ready Time
CPU Details - Hyper-V Guest Run Time
Detail Memory Metrics
- vSphere memory consumed by VMs - vSphere memory ballooning - vSphere paging
- Hyper-V memory balancer average pressure - Hyper-V memory current pressure - Hyper-V physical page allocation
Memory Details - vSphere Ballooning
Memory Details - vSphere Paging
Memory Details - vSphere Consumed
Memory Details - Hyper-V Memory Balancer Pressure
Memory Details - Hyper-V Memory Current Pressure
Memory Details - Hyper-V Pages Allocated
Detail I/O Metrics
- vSphere queue latency - vSphere device latency - Hyper-V disk throughput
I/O Details - vSphere Queue Latency
I/O Details - vSphere Device Latency
I/O Details - Hyper-V Disk Throughput
Interesting Observations
- Hyper-V dynamic memory - Hyper-V dynamic disk device performance
Dynamic Memory in action - High Pressure
Dynamic Memory in action - Low Pressure
Hyper-V - Random I/O on Dynamic Disks
Chart from Hyper-V MSDN Blog by: Tony Voellm
Conclusions, Caveats, and Final Thoughts
Overall the combined results were surprising close Individual tests produced some interesting findings - Windows CPU performance on Hyper-V was significantly slower - Two vCPUs running a single process had little negative impact - Random I/O on a Hyper-V dynamic disk had terrible performance - Hyper-V dynamic memory worked great with no performance penalty
Caveats - Workloads were very general and dependent on perl implementation - Many more variables could be taken into account - Result may be different on other hardware
Running benchmarks in your own environment should be done to help make the best informed decisions.
Thank you for attending
vSphere vs. Hyper-V Charles Johnson Metron-Athene Inc.
[email protected]
