Home > Workload Solutions > Data Analytics > White Papers > World-Record VMmark 3 Single-Socket Performance using Dell PowerEdge R7515 Servers and PowerMax 8000 Storage > Infrastructure operations
VMmark uses the workload virtual machines to run some common virtualization procedures, which include:
VMmark 3.x generates a realistic measure of platform virtualization performance by incorporating various infrastructure workloads in addition to the traditional application-level workloads. The following figure shows the infrastructure operations that occur during the benchmark run along with the details about which virtual machine is used for each of these operations:
Virtual machine cloning and deployment
The infrastructure workload performs the following steps:
The benchmark waits for 40 seconds and then repeats the process, continuing for the duration of the benchmark.
The performance metric is the number of clone and deploy operations per hour.
Dynamic virtual machine relocation between servers (vMotion)
The infrastructure workload acts on one of the AuctionMSQ virtual machines that is selected in a round robin fashion from among all the tiles. A destination host is selected randomly from all hosts in the benchmark cluster (other than the virtual machine’s current host). The virtual machine is moved to the destination host, left there for two minutes, and then returned to its original host. VMmark waits for two minutes and then repeats the process for the duration of the benchmark. This process creates bursty loads on the platform resources, particularly the network subsystem.
The performance metric is the number of relocations per hour.
Dynamic virtual machine relocation across storage (SVMotion)
The infrastructure workload acts on one of the Standby virtual machines that is selected in a round robin fashion from among all the tiles. A destination host is selected randomly from all hosts in the benchmark cluster (other than the virtual machine’s current host). The virtual machines’ files are moved to the maintenance partition, left there for two minutes, and then returned to their original location. VMmark waits for two minutes and then repeats the process for the duration of the benchmark. This process creates bursty loads on the platform resources, particularly the network subsystem.
The performance metric is the number of relocations per hour.
Simultaneous server and storage virtual machine relocation (XVMotion)
In this infrastructure workload, VMmark uses vMotion to relocate a virtual machine while simultaneously invoking the storage relocation of the same virtual machine’s disk files to a maintenance partition. After 2.5 minutes, the virtual machine is returned to the original host and the files are returned to the original location. The infrastructure workload acts on one of the DS3WebA virtual machines for XvMotion.
The performance metric is the number of relocations per hour.
Automated Load Balancing
VMware’s Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) ensures balancing of resources so that the underlying platform effectively responds to bursty workloads even when usage is high.