Sometimes an important fact can be so obvious it gets lost sight of. One of the major ones: the I/O is the basic unit of work in a virtual system. Virtual performance is only as optimum as the volume of throughput it allows a system to generate. But what gets overlooked is that by its very nature, the virtualization infrastructure allows the proliferation of I/Os in the execution of a given task. Eventually, the system “busyness” creates more demand than can be fulfilled and a bottleneck results.

The measurable performance benefit of a virtual solution is always proportionate to the amount of bottlenecking and the frequency the virtual system is being accessed. I/O workload characteristics have been studied in detail, particularly with regard to the virtual environment. Severs run an assortment of access patterns and I/O data sizes. Within a single workload may exist numerous data transfer sizes and multiple access patterns. I/O characteristics of a workload are defined by their ratio of read operations to write operations, sequential to random access and data transfer size. This is where performance fundamentals – basic truths – can get lost in a maze of metrics. For example, the ability of a system to generate a high rate of I/Os per second (IOPS) garners more attention than the more important metric of the generation of effective IOPS -- the minimum amount of I/Os required to get a job done.

The basics of true virtual performance will always be tied to the efficiency of a system in the storing and accessing of data. Today’s speed of data and network complexities are so high, that native system operations are often completely unaware of the level of operation needed to maintain I/O speed ahead of demand. When files are broken up in pieces on disks, it slows both the writing and recovery of data and creates exponentially increasing I/O traffic. Without resource coordination between VMs and host disks resource allocation bottlenecks occur and compound the effects of not having contiguous data.

V-locity® 2.0 virtual platform disk optimizer is recognized by many enterprise level data sites as the only solution for virtual performance barriers. It earns this recognition because of its comprehensive intelligence. V-locity optimizes the performance on both the virtual machines (VMs) and the host disk while also eliminating resource management issues. It also eliminates the problematic “bloated” free space on thin/dynamic disks that makes it impossible for data storage to be optimized. As a result, virtual platforms are able to do more work with less I/O traffic, thus increasing performance and efficiency and lowering hardware and energy costs.

While some of the issues related to virtual platform performance and compatibilities are broadly known, only Diskeeper Corporation has produced a low cost, automatic solution that works. This puts V-locity in a class of its own and a must have for optimum virtual performance.