A Tale of Millis and Nanos: Time Measurements in Virtual and Physical Machines
Key: LKM+13-2
Author: Ulrich Lampe, Markus Kieselmann, André Miede, Sebastian Zöller, Ralf Steinmetz
Date: September 2013
Kind: In proceedings
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Book title: Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing (ESOCC 2013)
Keywords: cloud computing; infrastructure; virtual machine; experiment; time measurement; accuracy; timeace
Abstract: Cloud computing makes large infrastructure capacities available to users in a flexible and affordable fashion, which is of specific interest to scientists for conducting experiments. Unfortunately, our past research has provided first indications that virtual machines -- the most popular type of cloud-based infrastructure -- have substantial deficits with respect to time measurements, which are an important tool for researchers. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis on the accuracy of time measurements based on various machine configurations. They cover influence factors such as machine type, virtualization solution, and programming language. The results indicate that not the use of virtualization as such, but the potentially uncontrollable utilization of the physical host is a decisive factor for the accuracy of time measurements. Different virtualization solutions and programming languages play an inferior role. Our findings, along with the publicly released tool TiMeAcE.KOM, can provide a valuable decision support for researchers in the selection and configuration of cloud-based experimental infrastructures.
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