[Opensim-users] OpenSim and Virtual Machines

Mike Chase mike.chase at alternatemetaverse.com
Fri Feb 21 16:11:39 UTC 2014 

On 02/21/2014 07:04 AM, Fleep Tuque wrote:
> I don't have nearly as much experience or expertise with optimizing 
> OpenSim as some of the folks who have already posted, but we did a 
> fair bit of performance testing at UC trying to decide which approach 
> was better, and in my experience the virtual machine route just didn't 
> perform as well as running on physical hardware.
>
> For something like a personal sandbox, or a small community grid where 
> you don't expect much concurrency, it probably would work just fine. 
>  For a full on grid hosting many projects or people, I personally 
> wouldn't go with a vm route.
>
> - Chris

There is no reason why OpenSim on a correctly configured VM given enough 
resources shouldn;t perform as well as a physical machine. Dahlia 
mentioned timer accuracy and that could be an issue but even then on any 
recent hardware the differences should be minimal.

If you are trying to use Linux I'd recommend the Mono 3.x codebase. I'm 
finding its performance is significantly better.  That probably requires 
building by yourself although there is a ppa available for Ubuntu.

Mike

>
>
> Chris M. Collins (Avatar: Fleep Tuque)
> Center for Simulations & Virtual Environments Research (UCSIM)
> UCIT Research & Development, Innovation & Partnerships
> UC Office of Information Technologies
> University of Cincinnati
> 400 University Hall
> PO Box 210658
> Cincinnati, OH 45221-0658
> chris.collins at uc.edu <mailto:chris.collins at uc.edu>
> (513) 556-3018
>
> http://ucsim.uc.edu
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 6:56 AM, R.Gunther <rigun at rigutech.nl 
> <mailto:rigun at rigutech.nl>> wrote:
>
>     Only tried opensim in virtualbox (on windows :O ) with opensuse as
>     guest.
>     But the biggest problem i see is the hdd speed. maby not enough
>     cpu resources. assigned 2-3 cores.
>     But it where a bit more laggy. but linux is not the best choice
>     for opensim anyway, so it maby could be mono to.
>
>
>     On 2014-02-21 07:37, John Sheridan wrote:
>>     If you're looking to run your own hypervisor I'd suggest
>>     something called Proxmox.  Its open source / linux based and
>>     allows you to create both openvz and kvm containers via a nifty
>>     web interface.  Their website is https://pve.proxmox.com
>>
>>
>>     On 02/21/2014 12:24 AM, Dahlia Trimble wrote:
>>>     I've used OpenSimulator in a variety of virtual machines, from
>>>     KVM to OpenVZ to VirtualBox to EC2. In general performance is
>>>     less than when running in bare hardware but everything usually
>>>     works. I've seen some issues with timer accuracy in some virtual
>>>     machines in the past and had to compile a custom linux kernel to
>>>     get around it, but I think recent virtualization technology has
>>>     probably fixed this. Some technologies like OpenVZ I found very
>>>     difficult to work with in general and I prefer to stick with the
>>>     KVM style approach where the host OS kernel is set up to allow a
>>>     "closer to the metal" virtualization.
>>>
>>>     I think virtual machines are good for lower performance
>>>     installations where fewer avatars and scripts are expected. and
>>>     bare metal should be used where higher performance is needed.
>>>
>>>     Often hosting companies will oversell and you may get a lot less
>>>     performance than you would expect from their advertised
>>>     specifications. If performance is poor with one company, try
>>>     others. The cheapest deal is usually far from the best.
>>>
>>>
>>>     On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 2:48 PM, Justin Clark-Casey
>>>     <jjustincc at googlemail.com <mailto:jjustincc at googlemail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>         I've seen OpenSimulator run under different virtual machines
>>>         (Xen and EC2).  Back a few years ago, there was a very odd
>>>         issue when using EC2 where the simulator process wouldn't
>>>         certain start context switching millions of times and freeze
>>>         out all other processes, though that may have been a mono
>>>         issue rather than EC2.
>>>
>>>         Other than that, it appears to work just fine as long as you
>>>         give it sufficient CPU resources, as is the case when
>>>         running on bare metal.
>>>
>>>
>>>         On 20/02/14 21:19, dogwomble at exemail.com.au
>>>         <mailto:dogwomble at exemail.com.au> wrote:
>>>
>>>             Hi all
>>>
>>>             I wad wondering if anyone had much experience with
>>>             running OpenSim under a
>>>             virtual machine? I'm interested in finding out what sort
>>>             of performance
>>>             can be expected from running in that sort of environment
>>>             and how far it
>>>             can be pushed without too many issues.
>>>
>>>             _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>         -- 
>>>         Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
>>>         OSVW Consulting
>>>         http://justincc.org
>>>         http://twitter.com/justincc
>>>
>>>         _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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