A quick test (so take it with a grain of salt):
- Huge pages is slightly faster than not using huge pages (~10% with 4 winxp virtual machines copying 512MB from one memory location to another).
- KSM is slightly slower then not using KSM (~5% with 4 winxp virtual machines copying 512MB from one memory location to another).
So, at first glance it would appear that we can use a loose rule of thumb:
- to consolidate the maximum number of machines, use KSM as it will allow you to over commit the amount of memory on your box.
- Risk: if the memory pages are significantly different, you may start swapping in a very bad way. This is where monitoring comes in
- to give the best performance to a number of machines, use huge memory pages.. does not allow you to over commit
- Risk: if you don’t leave enough memory for the host os, you can crash your machine. This is also where monitoring comes in
