The latest independent study from Principled Technologies shows that, compared to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4.16.2, VMware’s vSphere platform supported 62% more database transactions and maintained consistent database performance as VM count increased. Additionally, vSphere supported 1.5 times more VMs than OpenShift and required no additional tuning for memory overcommitment.
VMware vSphere is an enterprise compute virtualization platform designed to deliver the benefits of cloud to on-premises workloads by combining industry-leading cloud infrastructure technology with data processing unit (DPU)- and GPU-based acceleration to boost workload performance. Today, more than 300,000 enterprises use vSphere to empower transformation. vSphere enables IT teams to enhance operational efficiency, accelerate DevOps innovation, and strengthen security.
VMware vSphere 8 Update 3 offers a dedicated memory overcommitment feature for helping balance VM performance with density. But how does the memory management of a vSphere solution compare to competing solutions? Principled Technology conducted a study of the performance and VM density of VMware vSphere 8 Update 3 against Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4.16.2.
Overview of Tested Scenarios
Principled Technologies began testing with 10 SQL Server VMs, using the TPROC-C workload to assess OLTP performance (measured in New Orders Per Minute) for each solution. The initial setup involved memory oversubscription without overcommitting or stressing other server resources. They then gradually increased VM density, first with 12 VMs to create a slightly overcommitted scenario, and continued adding VMs until each solution experienced a performance drop of 10% or more. When a solution experienced significant degradation, the team ceased scaling up the VM density for that solution.
Both solutions used the same Dell PowerEdge R650 server, differing only in the virtualization platform.
Key Findings from Principled Technology
- vSphere 8 achieves better OLTP performance and scale out to more VMs without sacrificing performance
In the baseline test, each environment was configured with 10 VMs at 28 GB vRAM each, resulting in 280 GB of subscribed memory without requiring memory overcommitment. VMware vSphere 8 Update 3 supported 27.6% more NOPM (New Orders Per Minute) than OpenShift under these conditions.
In the next testing phase, both environments were scaled to 12 VMs, exceeding the server’s physical memory and requiring memory overcommitment. vSphere 8 Update 3 seamlessly handled this increase without additional configuration, supporting a 6% NOPM increase over the baseline. In contrast, OpenShift Virtualization required manual configuration to enable memory overcommitment, resulting in a 6.9% drop in NOPM from the baseline. These results indicate that vSphere 8 Update 3 not only supports memory overcommitment efficiently at production levels but also enhances VM density and transactional performance with minimal intervention.
- vSphere 8 reaches higher thresholds in VM density with minimal performance degradation
When both solutions were pushed to their performance limits to identify VM density thresholds, significant degradation (over 10% drop in NOPM) occurred. VMware vSphere 8 Update 3 reached significant degradation at 20 VMs, showing a 14.31% NOPM decrease from the 12-VM setup with slight memory overcommitment. OpenShift Virtualization 4.16.2 experienced degradation at 13 VMs, with a 23.19% drop in NOPM from the 12-VM configuration, indicating a lower density threshold for optimal performance.
At 20 virtual machines (VMs), the vSphere 8 Update 3 solution achieved its peak CPU utilization of 94.4%. When running 12 VMs, CPU utilization for vSphere reached 91.7%, and it was 80.1% with 10 VMs. In contrast, CPU utilization for the OpenShift Virtualization 4.16.2 solution was 58.3% at 13 VMs, 61.5% at 12 VMs, and 52.1% at 10 VMs. This test demonstrates that vSphere 8 Update 3 can handle higher VM densities with better performance stability under memory overcommitment compared to OpenShift.
Conclusion
Memory oversubscription allows businesses to optimize physical infrastructure by allocating more memory for peak usage. In comparative tests, VMware vSphere 8 Update 3 consistently outperformed Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4.16.2, delivering 62% more NOPM at the maximum VM density supported by each solution. vSphere supported 1.5 times more VMs than OpenShift and required no additional tuning for memory overcommitment, making it easier to configure. These results show that vSphere 8 Update 3 effectively increases VM density and OLTP performance while maximizing server memory utilization.
