Overview

This Direct from Development (DfD) demonstrates VM deployment capability for virtualized environments using VMmark, a benchmark that measures the performance and scalability of virtualization platforms. The testing was done in Dell Performance Labs for PowerEdge R760 for 2-node systems, showing generational improvement over the previous generation. The testing was performed on a 4-node R760 SAN cluster. This 4-node score is the highest 4-node score achieved on VMmark 3.0 with Intel and the second highest overall VMmark 3 score. This 4-node score is also the highest VMmark 3.1.1 score and secured the second position in the “Top Overall Score” category in the VMmark 3.1.1 results using Intel 5th Generation Xeon® Processors. (Platinum 8592+). This testing was conducted in Dell Technologies Labs in February-March 2024.

Benchmarking overview: VMmark

The first version of VMmark was launched in 2007 as a single-host benchmark when organizations were in their infancy in terms of their virtualization maturity. VMmark 3.1.1, released in 2020, is the current release of the benchmark.

VMmark uses a unique tile-based implementation in which each “tile” consists of a collection of virtual machines running a set of diverse workloads. This tile-based approach is common across all versions of the VMmark benchmark. Since the initial release of VMmark, virtualization has become the norm for applications, and these applications have evolved. The workloads that are run in the VMmark tiles have also evolved to provide the closest to real-world metrics for users to assess their virtual environments.

Figure 1.  A web-scale multi-server virtualization platform benchmark

Solution architecture

For the purpose of generational testing, we tested Dell PowerEdge R750 powered by 3^rd Gen Intel Processors and then compared it with Dell PowerEdge R760 powered by 4^th Gen and 5^th Gen Xeon Scalable processors respectively.

This solution includes the following components:

The metrics of the application workloads within each tile are computed and aggregated into a score for that tile. This aggregation is performed by first normalizing the different performance metrics (such as actions/minute and operations/minute) for a reference platform. Then, a geometric mean of the normalized scores is computed as the final score for the tile. The resulting per-tile scores are then summed to create the application workload portion of the final metric. The metrics for the infrastructure workloads are aggregated separately. The final benchmark score is computed as a weighted average: 80 percent to the application workload component and 20 percent to the infrastructure workload component.

Results

When comparing results from 3^rd Gen Intel CPUs to 4^th Gen and 5^th Gen CPUs, we see a linear increment on the VMmark 3.1.1 score and on the Number of Tiles for each case. The percentage gain was up to 82% in the VMmark 3.1.1 score from 3^rd to 5^th generation. In addition, the number of tiles increased from 14 to 28, making a 2x increment in tiles from 3^rd to 5^th Gen CPUs[1].

World record with 4-node SAN

In addition to the above testing, Dell also tested the PowerEdge R760 with a 4-node SAN configuration and achieved a score of 51.23 @ 55 tiles. As of April 2, 2024, this 4-node score is the highest 4-node Intel score achieved on VMmark 3.1.1 and the 2nd highest overall VMMark 3.1.1 score.

This showcases the great performance and scalability of Dell PowerEdge R760 servers for virtualization use cases, especially when combined with high performance Dell storage. VMmark is an excellent indicator of today’s virtualized applications in the datacenter.

The published results met all QoS thresholds and is compliant with VMmark 3.1.1 run and reporting rules. The following table shows the scores of the submitted test results. The results clearly showcase the Dell advantage over its competitors.

Conclusion

Virtualization is imminent for any enterprise application. Without virtualization, it is difficult to utilize the power of a modern server completely. In a virtualized environment, a software layer lets users create multiple independent VMs on a single physical server, to take full advantage of the hardware resources. vSAN-based solutions provide flexibility as you scale, reducing the initial and future cost of ownership. Add physical and virtual servers to the server pools to scale horizontally. Add virtual resources to the infrastructure to scale vertically. The PowerEdge R760 vSAN Ready Node is the recommended appliance for VDI deployments because it is leveraged for both “Density Optimized” and “Virtual Workstation” configurations. With the VMmark Score of 51.23 @ 55 tiles, different virtualization workloads can run optimally, providing a flexible solution for organizations of any size.

References

Dell Technologies documentation

The following Dell Technologies documentation provides other information related to this document. Access to these documents depends on your login credentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your Dell Technologies representative.

• PowerEdge R760 rack server resources

VMware documentation

See the following VMware documentation.

• VMmark 3.x Results
• https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2021-06-29-DellEMC-PowerEdge-R750.pdf
• https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2023-01-17-Dell-PowerEdge-R760.pdf
• https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2024-02-20-Dell-PowerEdge-R760.pdf