Is an I/O benchmark made for hardware an accurate assessment of a Windows VM's performance under vSphere 5?

Posted by Jeremy on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Jeremy
Published on 2013-10-31T07:43:46Z Indexed on 2013/10/31 9:56 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 227

Filed under:

windows-server-2008-r2

|

vmware-vsphere

|

benchmarks

We support an enterprise application running on Windows Server 2008 R2. One of our customers has chosen to install to VMWare, and what I'm finding is that the VM's are relatively slow compared to hardware. Our product development team has advised that many VMs appear to run particularly slow on I/O benchmarks, which impact performance in production.

I've tried the AttoSoft I/O benchmark and find that for smaller I/O blocks (1-32K) the VM I'm looking at is 25x slower than hardware and for larger I/O blocks (1-8MB) it's 10x slower.

Is this a fair benchmark? If not, any suggestions for a fair test?

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about windows-server-2008-r2

Cannot enable network discovery on Windows Server 2008 R2

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm trying to enable the Network Discovery feature on a newly installed Windows Server 2008 R2 instance. The network connection is in the Home or Work profile (it is not domain joined). These are the steps I've followed: Within the Network and Sharing Center I select Change advanced sharing settings Then… >>> More
Windows Server 2008 R2: AD Module for Windows PowerShell

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a new Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell, a consolidated group of 76 cmdlets that can perform a host of tasks against Active Directory's various services. >>> More
Windows Server 2008 R2: Introducing the AD Administrative Center

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
The Active Directory Administrative Center in Windows Server 2008 R2 is a significant improvement over its predecessor. Although not without limitations, it offers beefed-up management of AD objects, new navigation capabilities, better task-based management options, and improvements to the properties… >>> More
Sun Fire X4270 M3 SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode) Two-Tier Standard Sales and Distribution (SD) Benchmark

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
Oracle's Sun Fire X4270 M3 server achieved 8,320 SAP SD Benchmark users running SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 with unicode software using Oracle Database 11g and Oracle Solaris 10. The Sun Fire X4270 M3 server using Oracle Database 11g and Oracle Solaris 10… >>> More
Now Customers Can Actually Locate Your Resources with URL Rewriter 2.0 RTW

as seen on ASP.net Weblogs - Search for 'ASP.net Weblogs'
Today, Microsoft announced the final release of IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 RTW . Now the first reason might be obvious why you would want to rewrite a URL – when you are at a cocktail party with loud music and tasty appetizers and a potential customer asks you where they can get more info on your snazzy… >>> More

Related posts about vmware-vsphere

VMware vSphere 4.1 and BackupExec 2010

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm sure a common problem with most shops is backups, their size, and the window in which you have to back up the data. What we are working with: VMware vSphere 4.1 Cluster PS4000XV Equallogic Storage Array (1.6TB Volume dedicated for Backup to Disk) Physical Backup Server with a single LTO4 drive… >>> More
VMware sort VMware Go Pro sa solution de virtualisation Cloud pour PME, passerelle vers VMware vSphere

as seen on Developper.com - Search for 'Developper.com'
VMware sort VMware Go Pro Sa solution de virtualisation Cloud pour PME, passerelle vers VMware vSphere VMware vient d'annoncer la sortie de sa solution de virtualisation Cloud pour les PME : VMware Go Pro. VMware Go Pro a pour principal objectif de faciliter les efforts de virtualisation… >>> More
SQL Server Licensing in a VMware vSphere Cluster

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
If I have SQL Server 2008 instances running in virtual machines on a VMware vSphere cluster with vMotion\DRS enabled so that the VM's can (potentially) run on any one of the physical servers in the cluster what precisely are the license requirements? For example assume that I have 4 physical ESX… >>> More
SQL Server Licensing in a VMware vSphere Cluster

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
If I have SQL Server 2008 instances running in virtual machines on a VMware vSphere cluster with vMotion\DRS enabled so that the VM's can (potentially) run on any one of the physical servers in the cluster what precisely are the license requirements? For example assume that I have 4 physical ESX… >>> More
Do I need VMWare vSphere?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm planning use vmware to upgrade some of very aged server instead replace with all new bunch of server. VMWare vSphere sounds great but because of low budget I can't afford for both licenses and SANs. Without SAN, is vSphere worth the price? As I know without SAN, the VMWare HA, VMontion, FT is… >>> More