cloud-hypervisor/docs/performance_metrics.md

Performance Metrics

Cloud Hypervisor provides a performance metrics binary for users to generate metrics data from their own environment. This document describes how to generate metrics data quickly by using Cloud Hypervisor's development script, e.g. dev_cli.sh. The only prerequisite is Docker installation. Please note that upon its first invocation, this script will pull a fairly large container image.

Run the Performance Tests

To generate metrics data for all available performance tests (including boot time, block I/O throughput, and network throughput & latency) and output the result into a json file:

$ ./scripts/dev_cli.sh tests --metrics -- -- --report-file /tmp/metrics.json

To get a list of available performance tests:

$ ./scripts/dev_cli.sh tests --metrics -- -- --list-tests

To generate metrics data for selected performance tests, e.g. boot time only:

$ ./scripts/dev_cli.sh tests --metrics -- -- --report-file /tmp/metrics.json --test-filter boot_time

To set custom timeout or test iterations for all performance tests:

$ ./scripts/dev_cli.sh tests --metrics -- -- --timeout 5 --iterations 10

Performance Tests Details

The following table lists the supported performance tests with default timeout and number of iterations. The timeout defines the maximum execution time of each test for each iteration. The iteration defines how many times a test needs to be executed to generate the final metrics data.

Type	Metric	Timeout(s)	Iterations
Boot Time	boot_time_ms	2	10
	boot_time_pmem_ms	2	10
	boot_time_16_vcpus_ms	2	10
	boot_time_16_vcpus_pmem_ms	2	10
Virtio Net	virtio_net_latency_us	10	5
	virtio_net_throughput_single_queue_rx_gbps	10	5
	virtio_net_throughput_single_queue_tx_gbps	10	5
	virtio_net_throughput_multi_queue_rx_gbps	10	5
	virtio_net_throughput_multi_queue_tx_gbps	10	5
Block	block_read_MiBps	10	5
	block_write_MiBps	10	5
	block_random_read_MiBps	10	5
	block_random_write_MiBps	10	5
	block_multi_queue_read_MiBps	10	5
	block_multi_queue_write_MiBps	10	5
	block_multi_queue_random_read_MiBps	10	5
	block_multi_queue_random_write_MiBps	10	5
	block_read_IOPS	10	5
	block_write_IOPS	10	5
	block_random_read_IOPS	10	5
	block_random_write_IOPS	10	5
	block_multi_queue_read_IOPS	10	5
	block_multi_queue_write_IOPS	10	5
	block_multi_queue_random_read_IOPS	10	5
	block_multi_queue_random_write_IOPS	10	5

Output Format

Performance-metrics output the result into a json file if report-file param is set. The fields included in JSON include:

Field Name	Content
git_human_readable	Recent tag information of git repository
git_revision	Commit id of HEAD
git_commit_date	Commit date of HEAD
date	Date for executing the program
results	A list of metrics

Example

Here is an example of generating metrics data for the boot time using pmem:

$ ./scripts/dev_cli.sh tests --metrics -- -- --test-filter boot_time_pmem_ms

Here is a sample output:

{
  "git_human_readable": "v40.0",
  "git_revision": "e9b263975786abbf895469b93dfc00f21ce39a88",
  "git_commit_date": "Fri Jun 21 08:40:44 2024 +0000",
  "date": "Tue Jul 16 16:35:29 UTC 2024",
  "results": [
    {
      "name": "boot_time_pmem_ms",
      "mean": 105.9461,
      "std_dev": 7.140993312558129,
      "max": 120.01499999999999,
      "min": 92.37600000000002
    }
  ]
}

Note that the metrics data above is for illustration purpose only and does not represent the actual performance of Cloud Hypervisor on your system.