Xen Performance

[Koopmann, Jan-Peter]

Hi,

> Has anyone got any idea of how well MailScanner performs under Xen 
> compared to ESX?
> I'm interested in anyone's opinion who has tried both platforms - also

> any wisdom regarding messages/hour on either platform...

That is hard if not impossible to answer I am afraid. We are using
MailScanner and BarricadeMX on Virtual Iron (Xen based) on several sites
with great success. However none of them is high volume (ISP style). All
performance comparison I have seen and the few I have done myself
suggest (!) that a proper Xen implementation can (!) outperform ESX in
nearly all ways but certainly not to a big extent. 

The problem is that to my knowledge VMWare simply does not allow proper
comparison of their platform to others and will smash down all reports
on it in public. I might be wrong though. 

I think performance in your case will not be so much depending on using
ESX vs. a good Xen installation (with suitable drivers etc.). It is more
a question of "can/should I virtualize this" in the first place. This
again depends on your I/O requirements, what SAN/NAS you have available
etc., how much RAM, what CPUs etc. If you can virtualize it with ESX I
do not see why you would have a performance problem with Xen.

Regards,
  JP