The arrow of time

Here's something about VMWare Server 2's performance with FreeBSD. I've tested 8-CURRENT with debugging disabled, on VMWare Server RC2. The tests were done on exactly the same installation, with VMWare using it as a "raw" device. File system parts of the benchmark should be ignored (this is why I don't include the summary line here) because VMWare was set to "performance" mode in handling drives, meaning writes are heavily cached (which os good for performance but bad for reliability).

First, the results on the raw hardware:

                     INDEX VALUES            
TEST                                        BASELINE     RESULT      INDEX

Dhrystone 2 using register variables        116700.0 14012195.1     1200.7
Double-Precision Whetstone                      55.0     3051.6      554.8
Execl Throughput                                43.0     1824.3      424.3
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks         3960.0    86489.0      218.4
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           1655.0   105133.0      635.2
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks         5800.0    69004.0      119.0
Pipe Throughput                              12440.0  1141960.6      918.0
Pipe-based Context Switching                  4000.0   128159.7      320.4
Process Creation                               126.0     4663.1      370.1
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                     6.0      924.5     1540.8
System Call Overhead                         15000.0   827695.6      551.8

Now, under VMWare Server 2:

                     INDEX VALUES            
TEST                                        BASELINE     RESULT      INDEX

Dhrystone 2 using register variables        116700.0 12880910.7     1103.8
Double-Precision Whetstone                      55.0     2853.1      518.7
Execl Throughput                                43.0      450.1      104.7
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks         3960.0   146455.0      369.8
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           1655.0    72271.0      436.7
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks         5800.0   195275.0      336.7
Pipe Throughput                              12440.0  1052723.1      846.2
Pipe-based Context Switching                  4000.0    84841.2      212.1
Process Creation                               126.0      870.4       69.1
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                     6.0      122.9      204.8
System Call Overhead                         15000.0   767803.0      511.9

I note that context switching and process creation are still very weak points for VMWare. Difference in "Process creation" is huge, and probably means preforked Apache will perform relatively badly. These are preliminary benchmarks so take them with a large grain of salt, I'll try and do some more specific and more controlled benchmarks later.