Cloud, Server Virt, Drive Low Latency Benchmark Highlights

They got organized and ginned up an impressive-sounding benchmark test of Monterey, Cloudsoft's enterprise class cloud platform. The test was designed to showcase the value of cloud computing and server virtualization applications in latency-sensitive apps, and cranked out some good, "near-native" numbers. We presume, of course, that no undue liberties were taken with this benchmark, which revealed that the 10 Gigabit test environment "achieved consistently low network latency of just 26 microseconds between VMs communicating on different hosts. The testing demonstrates that near-native performance is now possible with applications running in a highly virtualized cloud computing environment."

Results-wise, the joining of BLADE's RackSwitch G8124 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch, Solarflare's SolarStorm SFN4112F 10 Gigabit Ethernet NIC, and Citrix XenServer server virtualization software realized 18.5 Gbps, bi-directional network throughput in an environment with four VMs on one host linked with another four VMs on another host via a single, 10 Gigabit Ethernet connection. According to the release, "This represents the top VM communication performance achieved to-date using a state-of-the-art networking and virtualization environment."

In addition to the BLADE, Solarflare and Citrix components, the test configuration--which was provided by Monterey Partners--included Super Micro 2U Twin2 servers, Intel Xeon X5570 processors. Debian Etch 32-bit Linus OS (standard XenServer ISO image), and Monterey Middleware software.

The release states that "The benchmark results validate the use of cloud computing and server virtualization for latency-sensitive applications, such as high-frequency trading and market data systems."

Question: Are bogged-down networking connections an increasing problem for your company?

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 07/26/2010 at 12:48 PM