[Users] How to make oVirt I/O write faster than Virtualbox and others?

Thu Mar 7 02:08:55 EST 2013

----- Original Message -----
> 
>   Every benchmark out there features KVM as the best virtualisation
>   technology. Even in the I/O write category. My results with oVirt
>   are deceiving. So I'm going to explain my test machine, setup and
>   ask your for advice to find out what's wrong. Any more data you
>   need please ask for it. I like oVirt mostly because of its
>   datacentre-aware web manager. But if it gets unusable I would have
>   to take a look at other systems.
> 
> Hardware machine for the host OS
> ---------------------------------
> * Sandy Bridge E
> * CPU : Intel Xeon E5-1620 (10 MB Intel Smart Cache)
> * Cores / Threads : 4 / 8
> * Frecuency : 3.6GHz / 3.8GHz Turbo Boost
> * RAM : 64 GB DDR3 ECC
> * Hard Disk : 2x 2TB SATA3
> * VT technology: Intel VT
> 
> Common OS Setup for the host OS
> ---------------------------------
> * 2 hard disks RAIDSoft
> 
> Guest OS common setup
> ---------------------
> * 1 socket x 1 core x 1 thread
> * 2 GB RAM
> * 300 GB Preallocated hard disk
> * Virtualmin installed (Just an excuse to have a mysql server)
> * Ubuntu 12.04 64bit
> 
> Write I/O test
> --------------
> The write I/O test is not standard one but a custom one. One of our
> needs is to create new Mysql INNODB tables. These tables have to be
> created in less than php maximum execution time so that some web
> installations don't timeout when creating their databases.
> DISCLAIMER: If you want to evaluate oVirt don't trust on these times,
> please do your own tests.
> 
> So the test creates table0 with two ints columns which are then
> filled with 100 insert intos. Repeat that for 99 more tables.
> Finally drop (delete) all the create tables.
> 
> What I run is:
> 
> mysql -u root -p -e "drop database test_create_tables"
> mysql -u root -p -e "create database test_create_tables"
> time mysql -u root -p test_create_tables < test_mysql.sql
> 
> I attach test_mysql.sql gzipped just in case anyone is curious.
> 
> Note that all the Proxmox tests are: Debian Squeeze + Proxmox (KVM).
> It was never used openvz as a virtualisation technology.
> 
> Test A - Debian Squeeze + Proxmox (KVM)
> -----------------
> Description: This is proxmox booting a machine as KVM (not as
> openvz). As said before only 1 socket and 1 core.
> 
> real    0m9.453s
> user    0m0.104s
> sys     0m0.076s
> 
> Test B - Proxmox (KVM, aio=threads)
> ----------------------------
> Description: Proxmox again. Qemu was run at hand by changing aio
> parametre to be aio=threads (as oVirt uses) instead of aio=native.
> 
> real    0m9.510s
> user    0m0.080s
> sys     0m0.096s
> 
> Test C - Proxmox (linux-image-virtual kernel installed, aio=threads)
> --------
> Description: If we install linux-image-virtual kernel inside the
> guest machine times are improved a bit.
> 
> real    0m8.691s
> user    0m0.104s
> sys     0m0.080s
> 
> Test D - Proxmox (ubuntu,  linux-virtual, aio=threads y: -cpu
> kvm64,+lahf_lm,+ssse3,-cx16)
> -----------
> 
> real    0m8.790s
> user    0m0.084s
> sys     0m0.096s
> 
> Test E - Proxmox (ubuntu,  linux-virtual, aio=threads y: -cpu
> kvm64,+lahf_lm,+ssse3,-cx16 -M pc-01.4)
> ---------
> real    0m8.720s
> user    0m0.100s
> sys     0m0.080s
> 
> Test F - Proxmox (ubuntu,  linux-virtual, aio=threads y: -cpu
> kvm64,+lahf_lm,+ssse3,-cx16 -M pc-01.4 -rtc
> base=2013-02-22T02:26:29,driftfix=slew)
> --------
> 
> real    0m8.790s
> user    0m0.096s
> sys     0m0.084s
> 
> Test G - Virtualbox
> ------
> Description: Ubuntu 12.04 64bit as a host. This is Virtualbox 4.2
> with the extension pack installed. Notice that neither I installed
> the guest additions tools in the guest machine nor the
> linux-image-virtual kernel.
> 
> real    0m36.176s
> user    0m0.612s
> sys     0m0.468s
> 
> Test H - Fedora 17 64bit - oVirt 3.1
> -------
> Description: This is Fedora 17 64bit oVirt 3.1 being installed in the
> Host. Web manager is installed in another machine. SELinux is in
> Permissive mode. Virtual machine is run at the same virtual machine
> where storage is. The datacenter is setup as "Localhost on host"
> type. Linux-image-virtual kernel installed inside the guest machine.
> 
> real    0m52.246s
> user    0m0.200s
> sys     0m0.128s
> 
> Test I - Fedora - oVirt 3.1 - vdsmd stopped.
> -------
> Description: This is Fedora 17 64bit oVirt 3.1 being installed in the
> Host. Web manager is installed in another machine. SELinux is in
> Permissive mode. Virtual machine is run at the same virtual machine
> where storage is. The datacenter is setup as "Localhost on host"
> type. Linux-image-virtual kernel installed inside the guest machine.
> vdsmd daemon was stopped at the host was stopped just in case it was
> the I/O decrease reason.
> 
> real    0m45.932s
> user    0m0.216s
> sys     0m0.100s
> 
> Some bits about the test:
> 
> * If you're asking, yes, I've repeated the test several times and the
> times I give here are representative.
> The password was inserted manually when running mysql commands but
> that's only 1 to 2 seconds less which doesn't explain the huge
> differences between the tests.
> * I also tried Fedora 64bit and Centos 64bit as guest systems and the
> results were worse.
> * I also tried other less powerful machines which work ok with
> Virtualbox but have poor I/O write results with oVirt.
> * The B-F Proxmox tests were trying to reproduce the oVirt parametres
> which might be wrong but nothing triggered the 52 secs of Fedora
> test so they were kind of useless.
> * At H and I tests (the Fedora ones) if you check top command when
> the test is being run you get often from 80% to 90% wa(iting).
> 
> Some random questions:
> 
> * Is it a problem that sandbridge architecture is being detected as
> an Intel Conroe architecture?
> * Is there any easy way to test aio=native in oVirt when running
> virtual machines just for testing it?

Our testing showed that aio=threads works better for file-based storage (vs. aio=native for block storage).

> * Should I test oVirt 3.2? Is there any improvement in I/O writing?

Probably not, but you should try with oVirt 3.2 nevertheless, for the wealth of other features that might be useful now or later (direct LUN for example).

> * What about Fedora 18? Any improvements in I/O writing or, I don't
> know, the Virtio system?

Probably a newer QEMU and KVM can provide better performance. Did not go through the complete changelog to verify it.

> * Any ovirt-node package for Debian/Ubuntu? The wiki seems like a
> draft (http://www.ovirt.org/Ovirt_build_on_debian/ubuntu).
> * Any I/O write consuming package that I should remove from stock
> Fedora just before installing it from the web manager?
> 
> So... Any idea?

I'd start with comparing the complete QEMU command line between the instances. I don't think it's only the -cpu that'll affect the performance (unless the test is CPU bound?). Specifically, what about the cache= setting? We use, for data safety, cache=none.

Y.

> 
> Thank you very much!
> 
> P.S.: Thanks to my workmate Sergi which found out the mysql test and
> was kind to test some of my setups.
> 
> --
> --
> Adrián Gibanel
> I.T. Manager
> 
> +34 675 683 301
> www.btactic.com
> 
> 
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