Performance-monitoring counter MSRs

[mancha]

Hello.

Congratulations on the recent big 5.0 release - I look forward to giving it a test drive.

Back in 2013, Taral asked about performance monitoring support in VirtualBox guests. Oracle's Ramshankar replied it was a "work in progress".

I was hoping someone from the VirtualBox team might provide an update on this. Needless to say, being able to conduct performance monitoring in VB guests would be quite valuable.

Thank you.

--mancha

[michaln]

Needless to say, being able to conduct performance monitoring in VB guests would be quite valuable.

As long as "valuable" means strictly of interest to users of the free VirtualBox package, don't expect it to get high priority.

[mancha]

As long as "valuable" means strictly of interest to users of the free VirtualBox package, don't expect it to get high priority.

I don't know what kind of interest there is for this feature across the entire ecosystem.

But, your comment has helped me understand how Oracle balances development priorities between features commercial clients immediately demand versus features that might substantially improve product quality/usefulness and expand future pay-customer bases.

Thanks.

--mancha

[michaln]

But, your comment has helped me understand how Oracle balances development priorities between features commercial clients immediately demand versus features that might substantially improve product quality/usefulness and expand future pay-customer bases.

You're welcome. I'm glad you understand how prospective customers like to remain prospective customers only until they get what they want, and then they're suddenly happy with a free product.

[mancha]

You're welcome. I'm glad you understand how prospective customers like to remain prospective customers only until they get what they want, and then they're suddenly happy with a free product.

That's a rather cynical view.

Quickly perusing different sub-boards here as well as the VirtualBox Bugtracker, I noticed substantial bug reporting, patches, and other contributions from users of your free product.

If I managed a project such as VirtualBox, I'd be quite grateful if I were lucky enough to have a large and energetic user base that was willing to donate time and other resources to help improve the project. Rather than alienate them, I'd work hard to foster those relationships. But that's me.

--mancha

[scottgus1]

Mancha, you can suggest enhancements on the Bugtracker. The developers don't come here to read suggestions very often, I'm told. Try to make a good case for why this suggestion would help Virtualbox. Maybe they'll like it.

[maikscholz]

Hi all,
having the Intel Performance Counter in a Linux guest running on a windows host would be great.
Is there any forcast for that?

Additional support for "Intel Prozessor Trace" (https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/ ... or-tracing) would be great.

Maik

[michaln]

If someone submits patches to add such functionality, it will happen pretty quickly. If not, it's impossible to say if or when anything might happen.

[fractalsystems]

Would love to see this as well. @mancha, I agree, that viewpoint is very cynical...I can't imagine @michain's view is that of all of Oracle, but...yeah, wouldn't surprise me.

And as far as submitting patches...that is, unless it conflicts with the Enterprise offering in any way

This grad paper sure makes it seem possible, and achieved!:
[netscale].[cse].[nd].[edu]/cms/pub/Edu/GradOSF12FinalReport/FinalReport_JiangCai.pdf (sorry, can't post urls, first post)