Marc Espie

How effective are OS-level virtualization tools for managing containers?

By David Beserra, Robert Nantchouang, Mickael Chau, Patricia Takako Endo, Jean Araujo, Marc Espie

2025-04-01

In 39th international conference on advanced information networking and applications (AINA-2025)

Abstract

As reliance on OS-level virtualization tools grows, understanding their efficiency in container management tasks is essential for optimizing performance. This study presents a comprehensive performance analysis of Docker, Podman, and LXD across key container management tasks: loading, starting, stopping, and removing containers and images. Our results indicate Docker’s consistent superiority in speed, achieving the fastest execution times across tasks but at the cost of higher CPU usage. Podman demonstrates balanced resource efficiency, though generally slower than Docker in image loading. LXD, while slower in starting containers, exhibits lower CPU usage in parallel operations, making it suitable for scenarios where resource efficiency is prioritized over speed. These findings underscore the impact of tool choice on containerized environment performance, highlighting the importance of selecting a tool based on specific deployment requirements.

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Could the topology of virtual processors affect the performance of a BSD-family OS running in a VM?

By David Beserra, Marc Espie, Jean Araujo, Léo Tomasimo, Hector Poncins, Hadrien-Samrek Lacombe, Thomas Vondracek

2023-06-01

In 18th iberian conference on information systems and technologies (CISTI’2023)

Abstract

Virtual machines are an essential technology in distributed and pervasive systems. One of its configurable parameters is the topology of the virtual processing system, which can potentially impact its performance. In this work, we verify how different virtual processing topologies affect the performance of VMs running BSD OSes. We conclude that in some types of application the topology does not affect the VM performance, while in others it does, and that the performance impact also depends on the OS adopted by the VM.

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