Ubuntu Linux 12.10 Xen KVM Virtualization A comparison of Xen and KVM virtualization against bare metal from an Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition system running a development snapshot of Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal from 27 June 2012. Benchmarking for a future article on Phoronix.com. Bare Metal: Processor: Intel Core i7-3960X @ 3.30GHz (12 Cores), Motherboard: Intel DX79SI, Chipset: Intel Xeon E5/Core, Memory: 8192MB, Disk: 64GB OCZ VERTEX, Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 4650 512MB, Audio: Realtek ALC892, Monitor: DELL S2409W, Network: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Connection OS: Ubuntu 12.10, Kernel: 3.5.0-2-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Unity 5.12.0, Display Server: X Server 1.11.3, Display Driver: radeon 6.14.4, OpenGL: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.3 Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.7, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1920x1080 Xen HVM 4.1.2: Processor: Intel Core i7-3960X @ 3.30GHz (12 Cores), Motherboard: Xen HVM domU v4.1.2, Chipset: Intel 440FX- 82441FX PMC, Memory: 6144MB, Disk: 22GB, Graphics: LLVMpipe, Audio: Ensoniq ES1370 OS: Ubuntu 12.10, Kernel: 3.5.0-2-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Unity 2D 5.12.0, Display Server: X Server 1.11.3, Display Driver: cirrus 1.4.0, OpenGL: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.3 Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.7, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1024x768, System Layer: Xen HVM domU 4.1.2 KVM Virtualization: Processor: QEMU Virtual 1.1.0 @ 3.30GHz (12 Cores), Motherboard: Bochs, Chipset: Intel 440FX- 82441FX PMC, Memory: 6144MB, Disk: 18GB, Graphics: LLVMpipe, Audio: Generic 1af4 ID 21, Network: Red Hat Virtio device OS: Ubuntu 12.10, Kernel: 3.5.0-2-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Unity 2D 5.12.0, Display Server: X Server 1.11.3, Display Driver: cirrus 1.4.0, OpenGL: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.3 Gallium 0.4, Compiler: GCC 4.7, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1024x768, System Layer: QEMU 1.1.0 Dbench 4.0 Client Count: 1 MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 35.91 |=================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 17.95 |========================= KVM Virtualization . 26.18 |===================================== Threaded I/O Tester 0.3.3 Test: Random Write - Size Per Thread: 64MB - Thread Count: 8 MB/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 3.07 |================================================ Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 3.33 |==================================================== KVM Virtualization . 1.75 |=========================== NAS Parallel Benchmarks 3.3 Test / Class: EP.B Total Mop/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 401.84 |================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 378.80 |=============================================== KVM Virtualization . 394.69 |================================================= NAS Parallel Benchmarks 3.3 Test / Class: LU.A Total Mop/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 12804.56 |================================================ Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 10603.07 |======================================== KVM Virtualization . 11630.58 |============================================ NAS Parallel Benchmarks 3.3 Test / Class: MG.B Total Mop/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 2711.72 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 2520.88 |============================================== KVM Virtualization . 2471.40 |============================================= NAS Parallel Benchmarks 3.3 Test / Class: SP.A Total Mop/s > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 3689.33 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 3472.48 |============================================== KVM Virtualization . 3460.69 |============================================== LAMMPS Molecular Dynamics Simulator 1.0 Test: Rhodopsin Protein Loop Time < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ......... 39.25 |================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 40.22 |=================================================== KVM Virtualization . 39.94 |=================================================== Timed HMMer Search 2.3.2 Pfam Database Search Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ......... 15.54 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 15.89 |================================================== KVM Virtualization . 16.10 |=================================================== Timed MAFFT Alignment 6.864 Multiple Sequence Alignment Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ......... 6.17 |======================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 12.87 |=================================================== KVM Virtualization . 12.04 |================================================ SciMark 2.0 Computational Test: Composite Mflops > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 1262.68 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 1211.82 |=============================================== KVM Virtualization . 1167.57 |============================================= SciMark 2.0 Computational Test: Monte Carlo Mflops > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 416.59 |================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 405.58 |================================================= KVM Virtualization . 414.58 |================================================== SciMark 2.0 Computational Test: Fast Fourier Transform Mflops > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 333.92 |================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 310.11 |============================================== KVM Virtualization . 232.04 |=================================== SciMark 2.0 Computational Test: Sparse Matrix Multiply Mflops > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 2005.39 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 1930.46 |=============================================== KVM Virtualization . 1843.00 |============================================= SciMark 2.0 Computational Test: Dense LU Matrix Factorization Mflops > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 2378.31 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 2260.28 |=============================================== KVM Virtualization . 2179.17 |============================================= SciMark 2.0 Computational Test: Jacobi Successive Over-Relaxation Mflops > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 1179.18 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 1152.69 |================================================ KVM Virtualization . 1169.08 |================================================= John The Ripper 1.7.9 Test: Blowfish Real C/S > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 8116 |==================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 7664 |================================================= KVM Virtualization . 7933 |=================================================== VP8 libvpx Encoding 0.9.7-p1 vpxenc Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 27.43 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 28.78 |=================================================== KVM Virtualization . 23.05 |========================================= x264 2011-12-06 H.264 Video Encoding Frames Per Second > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 201.46 |================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 192.80 |================================================ KVM Virtualization . 166.95 |========================================= GraphicsMagick 1.3.12 Operation: Sharpen Iterations Per Minute > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 106 |===================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 95 |================================================ KVM Virtualization . 104 |==================================================== GraphicsMagick 1.3.12 Operation: Resizing Iterations Per Minute > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 175 |===================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 153 |============================================== KVM Virtualization . 169 |=================================================== GraphicsMagick 1.3.12 Operation: Local Adaptive Thresholding Iterations Per Minute > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 102 |===================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 91 |=============================================== KVM Virtualization . 100 |==================================================== Himeno Benchmark 3.0 Poisson Pressure Solver MFLOPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 1632.27 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 1592.15 |================================================ KVM Virtualization . 1616.82 |================================================= 7-Zip Compression 9.20.1 Compress Speed Test MIPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 25011 |=================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 24021 |================================================= KVM Virtualization . 22812 |=============================================== Timed Linux Kernel Compilation 3.1 Time To Compile Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ......... 61.53 |============================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 103.14 |================================================== KVM Virtualization . 70.71 |================================== C-Ray 1.1 Total Time Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ......... 22.74 |================================================= Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 23.71 |=================================================== KVM Virtualization . 23.81 |=================================================== Smallpt 1.0 Global Illumination Renderer; 100 Samples Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ......... 64 |===================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 64 |===================================================== KVM Virtualization . 65 |====================================================== FFmpeg 0.10 AVI To NTSC VCD Seconds < Lower Is Better Bare Metal ......... 10.10 |================================================ Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 10.79 |=================================================== KVM Virtualization . 10.32 |================================================= OpenSSL 1.0.0e RSA 4096-bit Performance Signs Per Second > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 92.00 |=================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 87.28 |================================================ KVM Virtualization . 91.53 |=================================================== PostgreSQL pgbench 8.4.11 TPC-B Transactions Per Second TPS > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 314.05 |================================================== Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 176.97 |============================ KVM Virtualization . 211.47 |================================== Apache Benchmark 2.2.21 Static Web Page Serving Requests Per Second > Higher Is Better Bare Metal ......... 16780.16 |================================================ Xen HVM 4.1.2 ...... 16499.00 |=============================================== KVM Virtualization . 16318.92 |===============================================