Finally VMware seems it’s opening to public benchmarking by publishing this great whitepaper:
This white paper provides guidance in implementing benchmark tests using VMware
Workstation 5.5.
The paper discusses:
- Performance benchmarking methodology
- Configuring the systems under test to produce the best performance possible. This includes the host system, the VMware software, and the guest system
- Ensuring that the tests are making “apples-to-apples” comparisons
The paper also includes examples of common pitfalls that can affect the accuracy or relevance of the results obtained by benchmarking tests.
The guidelines in this paper are intended to assist in the acquisition of meaningful, accurate, and repeatable benchmarking results. These guidelines are useful when you perform comparisons between VMware Workstation and either native systems or other virtualization products, as well as when you run benchmarks in virtual machines in general. The guidelines should not, however, be considered VMware best practices in all cases.
Among other reasons, this is because benchmarking sometimes involves saturating one resource while overprovisioning others, something that would not be desirable in a production environment.
Note: Though this paper specifically addresses VMware Workstation 5.5, most of the guidelines recommended here also apply to VMware Player 1.0.
Read it here.
The whitepaper suggests a fair amount of benchmarking tools for all aspect of computing devices, but you would also consider take a look at virtualization.info list for further suggestions: How to stress test virtual machines.
