A series of tests were conducted at VMware Performance labs to investigate and compare the performance implications of vSphere 5.1 vMotion over the proven vMotion and Storage vMotion technologies in various scenarios including the migration of a database server and an in-memory application. In addition, live migration tests were performed over metro area network scenarios.
VMware vSphere® 5.1 vMotion presents a unified migration architecture that migrates live virtual machines, including their memory and storage, between vSphere hosts without any requirement for shared storage. This shared-nothing live migration feature offers administrators significantly more simplicity and flexibility in managing and moving virtual machines across their virtual infrastructures compared to the traditional vMotion and Storage vMotion migration solutions.
A series of tests were conducted at VMware Performance labs to investigate and compare the performance implications of vSphere 5.1 vMotion over the proven vMotion and Storage vMotion technologies in various scenarios including the migration of a database server and an in-memory application. In addition, live migration tests were performed over metro area network scenarios. Test results show the following:
- During storage migration, vSphere 5.1 vMotion maintains the same performance as Storage vMotion, even when using the network to migrate, due to the optimizations added to the vSphere 5.1 vMotion network data path.
- During memory migration, vSphere 5.1 vMotion maintains nearly identical performance as the traditional vMotion, due to the optimizations added to the vSphere 5.1 vMotion memory copy path.
- vSphere 5.1 vMotion retains the proven reliability, performance, and atomicity of the traditional vMotion and
Storage vMotion technologies, even at metro area network distances.