Recent kvm and vmware server comparisons?

Recent kvm and vmware server comparisons?

[Thomas Fjellstrom]

I've temporarily got vmware server running on my new "server", and intend to 
migrate over to kvm as soon as possible, if it provides enough incentive 
(extra performance, features). Currently I'm waiting for full iommu support in 
the kernel, modules and userspace, and didn't plan to migrate till I had 
hardware that could do iommu, kvm fully supported iommu + DMA for devices 
"passed through", could also pass through more than one device per guest (I 
saw hints that the intel iommu implementation can only do one device per 
guest? please tell me I'm wrong, it seems like an odd design choice to make), 
and full migration.

But if I can get enough performance over vmware server 2 with plain old kvm + 
virtio, I'd happily migrate.

I saw a message late last year comparing the two, but I know how quickly 
things change in the OSS world, and I also intend to use "raw" devices 
(possibly AoE) for guest disks (not qcow or anything like it), and virtio for 
networking.

So has anyone tested the two lately? Got any experiences you'd like to share?

-- 
Thomas Fjellstrom
tfjellstrom@shaw.ca

Re: Recent kvm and vmware server comparisons?

[Thomas Fjellstrom]

On Tuesday 10 February 2009, Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> I've temporarily got vmware server running on my new "server", and intend
> to migrate over to kvm as soon as possible, if it provides enough incentive
> (extra performance, features). Currently I'm waiting for full iommu support
> in the kernel, modules and userspace, and didn't plan to migrate till I had
> hardware that could do iommu, kvm fully supported iommu + DMA for devices
> "passed through", could also pass through more than one device per guest (I
> saw hints that the intel iommu implementation can only do one device per
> guest? please tell me I'm wrong, it seems like an odd design choice to
> make), and full migration.
>
> But if I can get enough performance over vmware server 2 with plain old kvm
> + virtio, I'd happily migrate.
>
> I saw a message late last year comparing the two, but I know how quickly
> things change in the OSS world, and I also intend to use "raw" devices
> (possibly AoE) for guest disks (not qcow or anything like it), and virtio
> for networking.
>
> So has anyone tested the two lately? Got any experiences you'd like to
> share?

I suppose no-one has any?

-- 
Thomas Fjellstrom
tfjellstrom@shaw.ca

RE: Recent kvm and vmware server comparisons?

[Martin Maurer]

> I suppose no-one has any?
> 

VMware includes in its EULA (End User License Agreement) a prohibition for any licensee to publish benchmark results without VMware's approval.
(see https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/eula.php)

Maybe this is a reason why all published VMWare benchmarks looks quite similar :-)

I would love to see a comparison but due to this restrictions it´s hard to get independent results.

Br, Martin

Re: Recent kvm and vmware server comparisons?

[Thomas Fjellstrom]

On Wednesday 18 February 2009, Martin Maurer wrote:
> > I suppose no-one has any?
>
> VMware includes in its EULA (End User License Agreement) a prohibition for
> any licensee to publish benchmark results without VMware's approval. (see
> https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/eula.php)
>
> Maybe this is a reason why all published VMWare benchmarks looks quite
> similar :-)
>
> I would love to see a comparison but due to this restrictions it´s hard to
> get independent results.
>
> Br, Martin


I hardly think it stops people from casually talking about their day to day 
experiences with vmware and how kvm matches up to it. And even if it did, it 
doesn't sound like something thats actually legally binding. Otherwise I can 
start putting things like YOU MUST NEVER TALK AGAIN in my eulas.

-- 
Thomas Fjellstrom
tfjellstrom@shaw.ca

Re: Recent kvm and vmware server comparisons?

[Hans de Bruin]

Martin Maurer wrote:
>> I suppose no-one has any?
>>
> 
> VMware includes in its EULA (End User License Agreement) a prohibition for any licensee to publish benchmark results without VMware's approval.
> (see https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/eula.php)
> 
> Maybe this is a reason why all published VMWare benchmarks looks quite similar :-)
> 
> I would love to see a comparison but due to this restrictions it´s hard to get independent results.
> 

Why compare kvm to vmware and not to real hardware? The results can than 
be compared to vmware/hardware and hyper-v/hardware.

-- 
Hans

Re: Recent kvm and vmware server comparisons?

[Thomas Fjellstrom]

On Thursday 19 February 2009, Hans de Bruin wrote:
> Martin Maurer wrote:
> >> I suppose no-one has any?
> >
> > VMware includes in its EULA (End User License Agreement) a prohibition
> > for any licensee to publish benchmark results without VMware's approval.
> > (see https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/eula.php)
> >
> > Maybe this is a reason why all published VMWare benchmarks looks quite
> > similar :-)
> >
> > I would love to see a comparison but due to this restrictions it´s hard
> > to get independent results.
>
> Why compare kvm to vmware and not to real hardware? The results can than
> be compared to vmware/hardware and hyper-v/hardware.

hyper-v doesn't provide network or disk io ;)

-- 
Thomas Fjellstrom
tfjellstrom@shaw.ca