Docker Container based PaaS cloud computing comprehensive Benchmarks using LAPACK

Abstract

Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud computing model becomes widespread implemented within Docker Containers. Docker uses operating system level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers. Containers are isolated from one another and comprise all the required software, including operating system API, libraries and configuration files. With such advantageous integrity one can doubt on Docker performance. The present paper applies packet LAPACK, which is widely used for performance benchmarks of supercomputers, to collect and compare benchmarks of Docker on Linux Ubuntu and MS Windows platforms. After a brief overview of Docker and LAPACK, a series of Docker images containing LAPACK is created and run, abundant benchmarks obtained and represented in tabular and graphical form. From the final discussion, we conclude that Docker runs with nearly the same performance on both Linux and Windows platforms, the slowdown does not exceed some ten percent. Though Docker performance in Windows is essentially limited by the amount of RAM allocated to Docker Engine.