We have measured time required to boot 1 to 5 instances of Windows system simultaneously. You can use this data as the baseline to check if your system is fast enough.
You should use sysprepped images for this test, to simulate VM first boot.
Steps to reproduce test:
Prepare Windows 2012 Standard (with GUI) image in QCOW2 format. Let's assume that its name is ws-2012-std.qcow2
Ensure that there is NO KVM PROCESSES on the host. To do this, run command:
># ps aux | grep kvm
Make 5 copies of Windows image file:
># for i in $(seq 5); do \ cp ws-2012-std.qcow2 ws-2012-std-$i.qcow2; done
Create script start-vm.sh in the folder with .qcow2 files:
#!/bin/bash [ -z $1 ] || echo "VM count not provided!"; exit 1 for i in $(seq $1); do echo "Starting VM $i ..." kvm \ -m 1024 \ -drive file=ws-2012-std-$i.qcow2,if=virtio \ -net user -net nic,model=virtio \ -nographic \ -usbdevice tablet \ -vnc :$i & done
Start ONE instance with command below (as root) and measure time between VM’s launch and the moment when Server Manager window appears. To view VM’s desktop, connect with VNC viewer to your host to VNC screen :1 (port 5901):
># ./start-vm.sh 1
Turn VM off. You may simply kill all KVM processes by
># killall kvm
Start FIVE instances with command below (as root) and measure time interval between ALL VM’s launch and the moment when LAST Server Manager window appears. To view VM’s desktops, connect with VNC viewer to your host to VNC screens :1 thru :5 (ports 5901-5905):
># ./start-vm.sh 5
Turn VMs off. You may simply kill all KVM processes by
># killall kvm