Performance comparison of different operating systems in the private cloud with KVM hypervisor using SIGAR framework

Abstract

Hypervisors enable multiple operating systems to run above it with the help of virtualization technique by sharing underlying physical resources. KVM hypervisor uses hybrid virtualization technique i.e., it uses full virtualization technique along with hardware assisted virtualization. It is motivating to analyse different Operating Systems (OSs) performance in the Private Cloud with KVM hypervisor. We have chosen three guest operating systems, namely Windows 2008 R2, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL 5) and Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx (all are 64-bit) for the experimentation in the private cloud which is created using CloudStack. The three Operating Systems (OSs) are prudently chosen to represent three categories (Hardware virtualized guest or Hardware Virtual Machine (HVM), para-virtualized commercial guest and para-virtualized free guest). The performances of three Operating Systems have been planned to evaluate by creating low, medium and high workloads. The Operating Systems are compared by performance tests of CPU utilization, memory management, disk activity, and network communication. Important System information is gathered using SIGAR framework on the respective guest Operating System on KVM hypervisor.