Testing Platform

Full testing Platforms to be tested as as follows:

All these tests will take place on a Quad Core 2.4Ghz Intel Processor with the Intel-Vt chip installed, Host contains 3Gb of RAM and a single 7.2krpm SATA HDD. (SATA HDD swapped out for additional hypervisors)

By choosing a single platform, all hypervisor tests are now comparable as they are all running on a single platform.

3 O.S's installed on the system to allow for multiboot functionality

1. Windows 7 - 64bit - used for testing Virtualbox/Workstation/Parallels Hosted Hypervisors

2. Windows 2008 Server 64bit - Installed with Hyper-V hypervisor

3. Unbutu 10.4 64bit - installed with the Linux KVM Hypervisor

I had use of a Dell Poweredge 2950 server with Dual-Core 2.4Ghz Processor, 4Gb of RAM, Perc 5i Raid Controller and 6 136Gb 10krpm SAS drives.

3 Logical Raid 1 Disks were presented at hardware level RAID, however it was not possible to install a multiboot environment consisting of the following:

1. Disk1: Windows2008 server (BCD bootloader)
2. Disk2: Citrix XenServer (extlinux bootloader)
3. Disk3: VMWare ESXi (syslinux bootloader)

All 3 systems use a completely different bootloaders, i tried installing OS's in different orders on different disks, i even parititioned the Win2008 disk with Ubuntu to introduce the Grub bootloader, however it was not possible to allow multiboot to take place over these 3 Hypervisors.

Also Win2008 does not allow Workstation installed alongside Hyper-V, therefore this single testplatform could not be used without performing a full rebuild of the Hypervisor on each occasion for testing.

Up to this point i was testing Virtualbox/Workstation and to a degree Parallels on Windows XP - DualCore 2.4Ghz laptop with 3Gb RAM, and on Windows 7 on the final test platform.