white paper

Considerations when Virtualizing High I/O

Workloads
Title: Considerations when Virtualizing High I/O Workloads
Author(s): Xtravirt (Paul Buckle)
Target Audience: Technical - Intermediate
Current Revision: 1.0 (July 2009)
First Published: July 2009
Product(s): General Virtualization
UID: XD10108

Content Overview:
• Typical High I/O Workloads
• Virtualizing High I/O Workloads, options and considerations

1.0 Introduction 3.0 Options and Considerations

A server consolidation project typically starts with an
assessment of the existing physical estate, resulting
in not only the identification of the most suitable
virtualization candidates, but conversely, those which
have greater resource demands. Often, though not
exclusively, these are found to be those machines that
provide an organization’s enterprise-class services, such
as databases, e-mail, and ERP.
While these potential bottlenecks cannot be ignored,
a combination of advances in hardware technology
and a creative approach to configuration of the
virtualized environment can enable the virtualization
of such machines. An awareness of these options
and considerations will help make the subsequent
virtualization of high I/O workloads a success.
3.1 Use virtualization-aware host servers
Over recent years, CPU and chipset vendors have
introduced a raft of technologies that improve the
performance of virtualized workloads; Intel has
developed the “Intel-VT” family of technologies and
AMD, “AMD-V”.
All work on the principle of making the hardware more
aware of the environment in which it operates, allowing
it to co-operate with the virtualization software,
reducing the load on the hypervisor and hence the
performance overhead on virtual machines. This in turn
widens the range of workloads for which virtualization
is an option. This is one option that really should not be
overlooked; ensure all your host hardware is Intel-VT or
AMD-V capable.

2.0 Typical High I/O Workloads
• E-mail Servers – Almost always exhibit very high
disk I/O, simply as a result of the nature of the
product.
• Databases - Often exhibit high disk I/O as data is
read at a rapid rate from a limited number of files.
• Terminal Servers - Can exhibit high disk I/O as
the hosted applications almost constantly write
to disk.
• File Servers - Can exhibit high network and disk
I/O, particularly if anti-virus software is installed.
3.2 Use suitably specified I/O cards
Regardless of how effective virtualization software is,
equivalent functionality can always be performed more
efficiently in hardware/firmware. This principle not
only led to the introduction of the above “hardware
assist” technologies, but also in the development of
enhancements to I/O cards. This includes features such
as jumbo frame support and TCP Offload Engine (TOE),
as well as the traditional increments to operational
speed. Consider using I/O cards with such capabilities
in host servers, ensuring that the virtualization platform
also supports the card and feature set.

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3.3 Use storage with suitable performance
capabilities
Modern virtualization platforms support the use of a
wide variety of storage types and while the differences
in levels of performance continue to diminish over time,
it remains critical to ensure the storage is able to meet
the demands of the workloads it will be supporting. For
example, a fibre channel-based SAN back-ended with
15K RPM disks will offer much higher I/O rates than
NFS-based storage on 7.2K RPM SATA disks.
That’s not to say that the same storage platform has to
be used for all virtualized workloads; using the highest
performing platform throughout can be prohibitively
expensive and so a tiered storage approach would
typically be adopted.
3.4 Dedicate host I/O resources to the virtual
machine
By its very nature, virtualization results in the sharing
of host resources between multiple virtual machines.
In the vast majority of cases does not cause any issues;
indeed it’s from this approach that the principal benefits
of virtualization are derived.
However, when a virtual machine has consistently high
I/O demands, it may be constrained by the portion of
I/O bandwidth that the virtualization platform makes
available to it. Consider configuring the virtualization
platform so that the relevant resource, a network card
for example, is dedicated to the virtual machine in
question.
3.5 Provide the guest operating system with
direct access to the I/O hardware
A recent development is the ability to give a virtual
machine’s guest operating system direct access to the
host I/O hardware, bypassing the virtualization layer
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and avoiding the associated overhead altogether. This
is achieved through a combination of hardware and
virtualization platform features, such as Intel VT-d or
AMD IOMMU and VMware VMDirectPath. However,
it should be noted that the use of such pass-through
abilities has an impact on the portability of the virtual
machine and it is effectively becomes tied to that
specific host server.
3.6 Use paravirtualised device drivers
Paravirtualized device drivers are developed to be
virtualization-aware and consequently result in lower
host CPU utilization and greater I/O throughput.
Typically, the virtualization platform has to emulate the
host I/O devices that are presented to a guest operating
system and this emulation can be very slow, resulting in
poor performance.
With a paravirtualized device driver, a disk device or
network card will continue to appear as a normal to the
guest operating system but because the device driver
is aware of the virtualization layer and able to interact
with it directly (without emulation), disk and network
subsystems can operate at near native speeds. Note
that not all guest operating systems support the use or
paravirtualized device drivers.
3.7 Dedicate a host to the VM
The ultimate extension to the approach of dedicating a
specific resource to a virtual machine is to dedicate the
entire host to it. This technique is principally employed
to dedicate the entire compute resource (CPU and
RAM) of the host to a single virtual machine, but it
obviously has the same effect for all I/O resource (disk
and network) too. The result is that the performance of
the virtual machine is only affected to the extent of the
overhead imposed by the virtualization platform.
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With modern software this overhead can be as low as 5

per cent, and this can be reduced further through the
use of paravirtualized drivers, making it inconsequential
in the majority of cases. The natural trade off’s in this
approach are the whether the benefits of virtualization
outweigh the cost of virtual infrastructure licensing,
administration etc. The point of view on this could vary
significantly between different companies.

4.0 Conclusion
Developments in server hardware and advances in
virtualization technology have made it possible to
virtualize an increasingly diverse range of workloads.
In summary, those workloads that were previously
excluded as virtualization candidates due to their high
I/O should be reconsidered.

This concludes the white paper.

About Xtravirt
Xtravirt is a knowledge-based company that delivers its expertise in virtualization online and in person. We have developed a reputation for astute
leadership and expertise through our work with an impressive array of organisations. It is this real-world experience that drives our ability to provide
independent, current and free advice online.

We work with organisations whose IT staff are frustrated with how hard it is to find detailed information and skills around virtualisation. We help our clients
deliver the true benefits of virtualization, resulting in cost and time savings.

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© Copyright 2009 Xtravirt Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. Xtravirt Ltd shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors
or omissions contained herein. Xtravirt and the Xtravirt logo are registered trademarks of Xtravirt Ltd. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

This document remains the property of Xtravirt Ltd. Contents may not be copied, reproduced or modified without written consent from Xtravirt Ltd.

Useful Links 5. Jumbo frames, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumbo_frame

1. Intel Virtualization Technology, http://www.intel.com/ 6. TCP Offload Engine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_
technology/virtualization/technology.htm?iid=tech_vt+tech Offload_Engine
2. AMD Virtualization Technology, http://www.amd.com/us/ 7. Virtualizing Server Workloads, http://www.amd.com/us-en/
products/technologies/virtualization/Pages/amd-v.aspx assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/AMD_WP_
3. Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d), http:// Virtualizing_Server_Workloads-PID.pdf
www.intel.com/technology/itj/2006/v10i3/2-io/1-abstract.htm
4. I/O Virtualization and AMD’s IOMMU, http://developer.amd. Tags
com/documentation/articles/pages/892006101.aspx Virtualizing, High I/O, I/O, Workloads

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