Chapter 13. Performance Tuning and Best Practices in KVM

In this chapter, we will see how performance tuning can be done on a KVM setup. We will also discuss the best practices that can be applied in a KVM setup to improve performance. We have included steps to tune different components such as CPUs, memory, networking, blocks and time keeping.

Performance tuning is a trial-and-error process. Virtual machines host different type of applications and hence the type of tuning required varies with virtual machines. In most cases default configuration is enough to get a decent performance. Before performance tuning we should understand all the components involved, the options available and the subsystems. Then we can start implementing the options, gather the results, and finally come to a conclusion. It is not possible to grab and fix in the performance world. It has to be done by a trial-and-error method. Either your setup is bare-metal or virtualized. One common way to improve performance is...