Microsoft Hyper-V provides a hypervisor implementation that promises better performance than host-based virtualization solutions such as Microsoft Virtual Server or VMware Workstation or VMware Server. This chat provides an open discussion about performance of Hyper-V virtual machines.

Technical Community - Background Reading


Hyper-V Function and Features Chat Transcript 8/26/08
Hyper-V VM Benchmark Surprise

Chat Transcript

DELL-ToddM Hello, everybody!
DELL-ScottH joined.
DELL-ToddM Yo
DELL-ScottH Yo
Dell-RogerF joined.
DELL-ScottH Hey, Roger
rpeter3 joined.
DELL-ToddM Hello, Roger!
Dell-RogerF Afternoon
DELL-ToddM Welcome, Rpeter3
rpeter3 Hello
DELL-ToddM We will be officially starting the chat in about five or ten minutes—feel free to chat early
DELL-ToddM Today's topic is Hyper-V performance
jbarton joined.
DELL-ToddM Welcome Jbarton, how goes it this afternoon?
jbarton Good so far :)
DELL-ScottH Nothing but chrome talk on the Twitter stream today
DELL-ScottH At least the people we follow
DELL-ScottH Of course I had to download it
DELL-ScottH Didn't work with the chat gadget on our page
DELL-ToddM Is their new browser very different from Firefox or IE?
DELL-ToddM I haven't even looked at a screenshot or anything yet
DELL-ScottH I don't really get it. How different can a browser be? It's small and loads fast—seems to render pages quickly
DELL-ScottH Very simple interface
DELL-ScottH Tabs and that’s about all you see
DELL-ToddM Anyway, it's about time to start the Hyper-V performance portion of the chat!
DELL-ScottH w00t
DELL-ToddM Last week we discussed Hyper-V from a function and features point of view
DELL-ToddM We ended up comparing it to VMware ESX as part of the discussion—see the transcript here: www.delltechcenter.com/page/08-26-2008+microsoft+hyper-v+function+and+features+web+chat
DELL-ToddM The idea with today's chat was to focus on the performance of Hyper-V
DELL-ToddM I have been doing some testing with Hyper-V in our lab and have learned some interesting things along the way and thought that others might like to discuss
DELL-ToddM So, here we are
DELL-ToddM Jbarton and Rpeter3, Have you started working with or testing Hyper-V yet?
DELL-ScottH Ye110wbeard tweeted that he couldn't make it, but we should commence the singing without him
rpeter3 No, I haven't
DELL_AndyF joined.
DELL-ScottH Hello, Andy. Use Action, Recent Room History to catch up
DELL-ToddM I had quite a bit of experience testing performance with VMware ESX, but there were some adjustments that I had to make for Hyper-V
DELL-ToddM ESX and Hyper-V are both hypervisors, but their underlying architectures are different
DELL-ToddM This ends up making something simple like measuring the CPU utilization on the server different between the two
DELL-ToddM In the case of ESX, there is a performance-monitoring tool called ESXtop
DELL-ToddM and the Virtual Center console
jbarton I have not touched Hyper-V at all
DELL-ToddM That will show the total CPU utilization for the server; across all VMs
DELL-ToddM I thought that with Hyper-V I would be able to use the CPU utilization counter in Perfmon to see the same type of thing
DELL-ToddM But the Parent partition (closest thing to the ESX Service console) doesn't show the CPU utilization of the Child partition VMs
DELL-ToddM It turns out that you have to use a new counter—Hypervisor Logical Processor - Total Run Time—to see what the CPU utilization is the whole server
DELL-ToddM This could be the Hyper-V tip for the day: Use Hypervisor Logical Processor to view CPU utilization
DELL-ToddM There are actually a bunch of these hypervisor counter objects added to a Windows Server 2008 system that is running Hyper-V
DELL-ToddM I had to hunt for a bit to find the right one, but you too can have fun poking around these counters if you are looking for something more specific than CPU utilization
DELL-ToddM Anybody interested in using Hyper-V in the near future?
rpeter3 left.
Mark2008 joined.
DELL-ToddM So, Jbarton, any questions about Hyper-V? Virtualization in general?
DELL-ToddM Welcome Mark08
Mark2008 Sorry I am late
DELL-ToddM You can use Action, Recent Room History to catch up
DELL-ToddM No problems on arriving a bit late
jbarton Not really, we are an ESX shop for the most part, I was just interested in anyone's experiences with running Hyper-V to see how it performed
DELL-ToddM I have been very impressed with the performance of Hyper-V VMs
Mark2008 I am running all our services in Hyper-V
DELL-ToddM I would say that generally the VMs perform similar to how ESX VMs would perform on the same box—Disclaimer: I haven't run the numbers to quantify this
DELL-ToddM The issue that I have had with Hyper-V is the tools around it
DELL-ToddM Until SCVMM—System Center Virtual Machine Manager—is out of beta it's kinda hard to really manage stuff that easily
Mark2008 I have not used any of the more advanced tool set from Systems Operation Center, but just the toolset that comes with Hyper-V
DELL-ToddM IMHO
DELL_AndyF Do you see any difference in terms of disk I/O?
DELL-ToddM The performance testing I am finishing up right now is with EqualLogic PS 5000xv arrays
DELL-ToddM I was able to push I/O such that I needed three arrays to keep up
DELL-ToddM I don't have a raw I/O number
DELL-ToddM Mark, what has your experience been with disk I/O?
DELL_AndyF Do I understand right; you had to add disk arrays the get the CPU toward 100 percent?
DELL-ToddM Yes, you are correct; but my target for CPU was only 80 percent. Running with up to 40 VMs on a four socket server
DELL-ToddM In my testing I am using some new unreleased processors that have more cores: www.delltechcenter.com/page/08-26-2008+testing+unreleased+processors+-+comments
DELL-ToddM I have seen good performance scaling with the addition of these cores
DELL-ToddM Oops, right-click on links to avoid exiting chat; I should have mentioned it
DELL_AndyF No, I'll remember^^
DELL-ToddM Unfortunately, I can't really say more about the testing results as I haven't finished the write-up and sent it though legal review yet
DELL-ToddM In general, virtualization with lots of VMs will scale better with more cores than a traditional single application on a single server
DELL_AndyF And for VM load generation you are using DVD Shop?
DELL-ToddM Yes, the world famous Dell DVD Store: www.delltechcenter.com/page/dvd+store
DELL-ToddM We discussed this some on last week's chat, but it is the same type of testing that I did with ESX and the DVD Store as in the past
DELL_AndyF I hope I can find the time to do some testing with an FC storage
DELL-ToddM But with new Windows Server 2008 VMs to take advantage of the "enlightned" Hyper-V drivers available for 2008 guests,
DELL-ToddM FC storage is so last year :)
DELL-ToddM As I sit next to a humming rack of CX3-80 15 K spindles in our lab
DELL_AndyF But if the storage becomes the bottleneck we have to be prepared
DELL-ScottH I think that would be interesting: how many CX3-80 15 K spindles would you need for same workload that is on the current EqualLogic array you just finished testing?
DELL-ScottH Of course, that is more testing
DELL-ToddM I would have started off with 20 disks on CX3-80—not sure where I would have ended
DELL-ToddM It has been interesting monitoring the iSCSI performance on the Windows Hyper-V systems
DELL-ToddM I have never really seen Ethernet network utilization consistently that high before
DELL-ToddM I also got to do some work with MPIO setup for iSCSI to the arrays to get my load spread across two NICs
DELL-ScottH Time for a 10 GB upgrade in the lab :-)
DELL-ToddM I still like the Fibre Channel stuff, but the EqualLogic arrays are very easy to work with (No Zoning, w00t!)
DELL-ToddM Any request for future Hyper-V tests/demos? Scott is working on an SCVMM one I think?
DELL-ToddM Hey, anybody going to VMworld this year?
DELL-ScottH If I can get the service to stay up
DELL-ScottH Will demo the self-service portal and how to set it up—instructions in the help are quite confusing
DELL-ScottH Hey, they shut down the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton!
DELL-ScottH Yesterday was the last day
DELL-ToddM A sad dayf:
DELL-ScottH http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/01/1725223&from=rss
DELL-ScottH I hope we can bid on all that memorabilia
DELL-ToddM Scott and I will be at VMworld; you can follow along: www.twitter.com/delltechcenter
DELL-ScottH We'll also have a virtual exhibitor booth at vmworld.com
DELL-ToddM Sorry about the light attendance today; there is a problem with the messaging system for delltechcenter.com, so reminders that I sent didn't make it to most
DELL-ToddM We are just about at the end of the hour; so we can wrap this one up!
DELL-ToddM Thanks to everybody for attending today's chat. Next week we will be starting a series on blades!
jbarton Looking forward to that
DELL-ToddM Scott has been working on the landing pages for those chats, and they should be up soon
DELL-ScottH We've got the links to the blades chats on the home page now; all have some background reading to prepare
DELL-ToddM Soon, like now :)
DELL-ScottH Already some good links for the M805 and M905 blades
DELL-ToddM Oh, the unannounced, but well-publicized blades
DELL-ToddM Feel free to post questions about Hyper-V on any of the delltechcenter.com Hyper-V pages or directly in the discussion forum
DELL-ToddM Thanks to everybody; see you next week
DELL_AndyF Thank you
DELL-ScottH I think IE detected that I installed Chrome and blew up on me