QNAP Systems, Inc. released its 'Virtualization Station' white paper, which is written with the perspective of the solution provider in mind to explore what virtualisation is, and understand in depth about QNAP Virtualization Station. The white paper also includes an assessment of virtual machine performance and results to help the reader choose an appropriate QNAP NAS and obtain a clear picture of VM configuration and application scenarios.
Using P2V (Physical to Virtual), organisations can convert existing PC/servers to virtual machines to save on the cost of buying and maintaining hardware as well as to simplify IT infrastructure and management.
High-speed I/O and vast storage
Virtualization Station takes QNAP NAS beyond fundamental storage to a new level as a host of multiple virtual machines and realises greater usage potential for virtualised servers and virtualisation applications.
Coupled with advanced functionalities such as Network and Virtual Switch and physical device passthrough (including USB and GPU), QNAP NAS provides high-speed I/O and high storage capacities for users in diverse industries/fields to benefit from the near-limitless potential of virtualisation.
Knowledge base for users
“This white paper is a very good reference for helping organisations to better understand the virtualisation-optimised design of the modern QNAP NAS that accommodates storage, computing, virtualisation, and services in a single device,” said Alfred Li, Product Manager of QNAP, adding “The actual results of the virtual machine performance assessment with multiple NAS models also presents a useful knowledge base to help users choose a NAS model that suits their needs and environments.”
This white paper covers performance assessment results of six middle-to-high-end business-class QNAP NAS models running virtual machines, providing a practical guide for organisations looking for a reliable storage solution to deal with virtualisation applications. Test criteria include processor, memory, disk and network I/O performance as well as the number of virtual machines that can be run concurrently. Below is the summary:
- A virtual machine utilises the virtual (logical) cores of the physical processor (a physical processor core supports two logical cores if hyperthreading is enabled). If there is a need for a large amount of virtual machines to be run on a single NAS, choosing a NAS that features multi-cores and high memory capacity is the primary condition.
- With hyperthreading, configuring additional virtual cores for a virtual machine does not necessarily mean it will provide a better user experience, as it depends on if the application being used has been optimised for multiple threads.
- For applications designed to run on a single thread, a processor with a higher clock rate will be more important than the number of cores.
- If computation is a higher priority and the number of virtual machines running at the same time is not in the picture, a processor with a higher clock rate is preferred.
- Disk cache settings will directly affect the access performance of a virtual machine reading and writing data. Users can install SSDs or configure SSD caching to increase the data access performance.
- Graphics cards can boost performance and enhance smoothness of virtual machines via GPU passthrough. If the graphics card requires additional power, then a NAS with a 450W (or higher) power supply is necessary.
