Performance benchmarking physical and virtual linux envrionments

Abstract

Virtualisation is a method of partitioning one physical computer into multiple "virtual" computers, giving each the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated hardware. Each virtual system functions as a full-fledged computer and can be independently shutdown and restarted. Xen is a form of paravirtualisation developed by the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and is available under both a free and commercial license. Performance results comparing Xen to native Linux as well as to other virtualisation tools such as VMWare and User Mode Linux were published in the paper "Xen and the Art of Virtualization" at the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in October 2003 by Barham et al. (2003). Clark et al. (2004) performed a similar study and produced similar results. In this thesis, a similar performance analysis of Xen is undertaken and also extended to include the performance analysis of Open VZ, an alternative open source virtualisation technology. This study made explicit use of open-source software and commodity hardware.