Xen Performance Teaser
caker
Linode Staff
$ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.16.tar.bz2
$ tar xfj linux-2.6.16.tar.bz2
$ cd linux-2.6.16
$ make defconfig
$ time make -j2 # (Single processor UML)
...
real 15m36.277s
user 11m4.890s
sys 4m22.970s
Xen:
$ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.16.tar.bz2
$ tar xfj linux-2.6.16.tar.bz2
$ cd linux-2.6.16
$ make defconfig
$ time make -j6 # (SMP Linode)
...
real 3m8.766s
user 8m27.320s
sys 1m15.980s
So basically a Xenode can compile a kernel in 3 minutes whereas UML takes about 15. Granted, the Xen host is faster, but even adding a penalty of say, 30%, that still is only a 4 minute kernel compile on Xen.
Not bad, eh?
-Chris
6 Replies
@caker:
UML:
$ time make -j2 # (Single processor UML)Xen:
$ time make -j6 # (SMP Linode)
It's certainly an impressive result, but the tests were not the same.
Can we see the result with -j2 on both machines?
@sednet:
It's certainly an impressive result, but the tests were not the same.
Can we see the result with -j2 on both machines?
Best would be -j1 on both as it seems the Xen linode could allocate more than one VCPU (ie run on multiple CPUs). -j1 would suppress much of the SMP versus UP advantage.
caker
Linode Staff
# make distclean; make defconfig; time make -j1
..
real 17m29.744s
user 11m53.640s
sys 4m54.100s
Xen
# make distclean; make defconfig; time make -j1
..
real 5m40.046s
user 4m45.270s
sys 0m38.640s
-Chris
Would it be difficult to run that same test on an OS running on the metal? Might be interesting just for comparison.
Can't wait for Xen to be available for everybody!
caker
Linode Staff
@Xan:
Would it be difficult to run that same test on an OS running on the metal? Might be interesting just for comparison.
Same machine, booted into:
Linux host56.linode.com 2.6.15-1-k7-smp #2 SMP Mon Mar 6 15:50:26 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux
make -j1
real 4m43.388s
user 4m27.114s
sys 0m21.094s
make -j2
real 2m27.666s
user 4m28.531s
sys 0m20.854s
make -j6
real 2m27.219s
user 4m29.766s
sys 0m21.260s
-Chris