Performance Evaluation of Caching Solution from Three Layers Perspective for Storage Performance in VMware-based Virtualization Environment

Caching mechanism was one of the solution to leverage storage performance in a virtualized environment. We can categorize it into 3 large groups based on its implementation target, we call it as 3 layers’ perspective or approach because it represents 3 layers of a virtualization platform. Testing of the storage performance using the cache approaches was performed using Crystal Disk Mark as the workload tool and additionally, we also measure time duration of clone process for a single VM. The experimental tests result showed that the approach offered by the second layer approach provides the greatest performance impact for read-and-write when compared to baseline performance (conditions without cache at all); performance result in sequence when compared with the baseline score for bandwidth and IO: 4K-Q8T8 has about 50,92 times higher score for read and 46,01 times higher score for write operations; 4K-Q32TI has about 8,1 times higher score for read and 7,74 times higher score for write operations; while 4K-QITI has about 54,54 times higher score for read and 28,75 times higher score for write operations. Additionally, for clone process, it was about 2,02 times faster in time duration than baseline. We also performed multi-layer test of the 3 layers; the top performance was obtained from the combination of second and third layer cache’s approaches, we got impressive bandwidth and IO score when compared with the baseline: 4K-Q8T8 has about 192,1 times higher score for read and 118,01 times higher score for write operations; 4K-Q32TI has about 38,92 times higher score for read and 10,59 times higher score for write operations; while 4K-QITI has about 247,92 higher score for read and 64,28 times higher score for write operations.