International Journal of Computer Engineering & Technology (IJCET)

Volume 7, Issue 3, May-June 2016, pp. 198204, Article ID: IJCET_07_03_019

Available online at
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/issues.asp?JType=IJCET&VType=7&IType=3
Journal Impact Factor (2016): 9.3590 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com
ISSN Print: 0976-6367 and ISSN Online: 09766375
IAEME Publication

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF WORKING ON

A HOST MACHINE, CLOUD MACHINE AND
VIRTUAL MACHINE
Sugandhi Midha
Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Technology,
Manav Rachna University, Haryana, India
ABSTRACT
Now days there exist several ways to develop your code either on a host
machine, cloud machine and virtual machine. This paper will help you to
understand the various available options and make the right choice for your
application. We can install virtual machines without hampering the stability of
native host machine. One can work on n number of platforms with the help of
VMs. However, correctly configuring, securing, and maintaining VMs
requires much more time and IT expertise compared to Cloud Services. In this
paper some application and code development such as website maintenance
and PHP code development on native host (Windows 7- WAMP Server), cloud
machine such as IBM Blue Mix and virtual machine (Ubuntu) are compared
on the basis of qualitative and quantitative measures.
The first section of this paper discusses about implementation of PHP code
on virtual machine and the time taken. The second section of this paper
implements the same code on the native host. Section 3 talks about
implementation on the cloud architecture. Section 4 discusses about
comparative study on the 3 platforms. Section 5depicts the experiment results
and Section 6 concludes the best environment to work upon.
Key words: Cloud, IBM Blue Mix, WAMP, PHP, Host, Ubuntu, Virtual
Machine
Cite this Article: Sugandhi Midha, Comparative Study of Working on A Host
Machine, Cloud Machine and Virtual Machine, International Journal of
Computer Engineering and Technology, 7(3), 2016, pp. 198204.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/issues.asp?JType=IJCET&VType=7&IType=3

1. VIRTUAL MACHINE
Virtual Machine allows you to work with cross platform approach. It allows you to
install completely separate individual operating system on the top of your usual
operating system. With the help of Virtual Machine you can install n number of
operating systems. Platform application support is required to install virtual machine.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/index.asp

198

editor@iaeme.com

Comparative Study of Working on A Host Machine, Cloud Machine and Virtual Machine

This support is provided by various applications like VMware, VMBox, Hyper V etc.
In my study, I have installed ubuntu-15.10-desktop-i386 iso on the VirtualBox-5.0.12104815-Win. Virtual environment mimic physical ones, so the user does not feel any
difference while working on the virtual machine. The Virtual Machine architecture is
depicted in Figure 1, Where Virtual Platform is installed on the physical machine. In
the virtual platform various isolated OSs can be installed which possess the capability
to run various applications.

Figure 1 Virtual Machine Architecture

The architecture used for my study for the Virtual Machine is portrayed in figure 2.

Figure 2 Virtual Machine Architecture for study

A sample code in PHP (as shown in table 1) to calculate the sum of first n
numbers was written to check the time complexity on the all the three environments.
The value of n has been varied to check the execution control and complexity in the
different environments.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/index.asp

199

editor@iaeme.com

Sugandhi Midha

<?php
$t1=microtime(true);
$sum=0;
For($i=0; $i<10000000000; $i++){
$sum=$sum+$i;}
Echo $sum;
$t2=microtime(true);
$t=$t2-$t1;
Echo <br>Execution Time - $t;
?>
Table 1 Sample Code in PHP

2. NATIVE HOST MACHINE

Physical Machine is the normal choice of a user. The architecture of native host
machine is simple. The number of Operating Systems that can be installed on the
native host is limited by the memory size.
The architecture used for my study for the Host Machine is portrayed in figure 3

Figure 3 Host Machine Architecture for study

Latency is the major consideration when we choose to run the code on the native host.

3. CLOUD ARCHITECTURE
In the traditional environment, Users follow a number of chronological steps like buy,
own, install configure, test, verify, manage it for execution of any simple application.
User is concerned about all its infrastructure, platform and usage of application
(Software) on the platform. Cloud environment releases the user from all these tasks.
A user has to just write a code and execute it. Cloud environment provide all the basic
3 services IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), SaaS
(Software as a Service).

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/index.asp

200

editor@iaeme.com

Comparative Study of Working on A Host Machine, Cloud Machine and Virtual Machine

Figure 4 Cloud Services

Cloud Architecture broadly categories into frontend and backend. Frontend

comprises of an internet connection and user machines. Backend is composed of
servers, computers, data storage system, different programs and virtual machines. It is
the side of service provider.

Figure 5 Cloud Architecture

IBM Blue Mix Cloud provides the public cloud services free to the users for a
month. IBM Blue Mix Architecture under study has been shown in figure 6.

Figure 6 IBM Blue Mix Architecture

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/index.asp

201

editor@iaeme.com

Sugandhi Midha

4. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
The purpose of the performance evaluation is to give route to the selection of
appropriate machine to work upon. Various qualitative and quantitative methods have
been considered under study. Table 2 discusses the various qualitative measures.
Feature
Instant
Deployment
Multiple
Deployment
Environment
Speed
Performance

Host Native Web

Machine

Virtual Machine
Application
deployment takes time.
Number of Operating
Systems can be
installed in a virtual
environment.
Slower than Physical
Host Machine
Average.

Instant Deployment of
application

Application deployment takes

time on Cloud Machine. It is
slower than Virtual Machine.

One environment
deployment.

Provides with multiple

Deployment environments for
same application

Quick Results.

Slower than Physical and

Virtual Machine.

Better than Running an

application on Virtual
Machine

Slow.

Poor.

Efficient.

High

Pay as you Go.

Safe. Data always there and
ready to use.
Low. Major Issue.
Support huge data sets.
Unlimited Storage Space.
Our Machine works as a thin
client; Even less amount of
RAM does not cause a
problem.

Cost

Best. Build with the

free resources available
on the physical
machine.
Low

Disaster Recovery

Moderate.

Poor.

Security
Large Data Set
Storage

High
Cannot handle.
Low.
System hangs if
application is heavy
and there is less
available RAM.

Average
Doesnt support.
Low.
System hangs if
application is heavy and
there is less available
RAM.

Resource
Utilisation

RAM

Cloud

5. EXPERIMENT RESULTS
A number of comparisons have been made by varying the value of n to analyze the
time complexity on all the 3 different environments. As the value of n grows, both
virtual and host native machine gives poor timing results. If the value of n increased
to a huge number then both the virtual and physical machine stops working.
Table 3 shows the experiment result with different values of n for the example code
shown in table 1.
Value of n
100
10000
100000
1000000
10000000
100000000
10000000000

Virtual Machine
Execution Time (Micro
Time)
0.0027871131896
0.00046801567077637
0.017223834991455
0.077975988388062
1.1061449050903
13.833157062531
Machine hangs. (abrupt
stop)

Host Native Web

Machine Execution
Time (Micro Time)
0.0001871131896
0.00022500266143626
0.007113502811321
0.008062466254102
0.1072458160812
10.830117052520
Machine hangs. (abrupt
stop)

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/index.asp

202

Cloud IBM Blue Mix

Execution Time (Micro
Time)
2.9087066630391E-5
0.0004226922871094
0.0068941116333008
0.049432039260864
0.44640493392944
4.9652810096741
5.2311081941762

editor@iaeme.com

Comparative Study of Working on A Host Machine, Cloud Machine and Virtual Machine

Graph 1 depicts the time complexity of the experiment results of table 3. X-axis
contains the value of n and y-axis depicts Micro Time.
16
14
12
10

Virtual Machine

Host Machine

Cloud

2
0

6. CONCLUSION
It has been observed that clouds are inexpensive in nature but have poor performance
measures. Clouds are not an appropriate choice for small applications. For large
applications and where you have less resources available with you, cloud is an
appropriate choice. Virtualisation products have advance management tools that
releases the user from risk management techniques. In case of a cloud, User hardly
bothers about infra, platform and software and uses the service according to the need.
As seen in the experiment results, clouds take the deployment time but once
initialized the speed automatically boosts up and it can handle large amount of data.
One environment fits all is not an optimal solution. Unique requirements and
growth opportunities are leading many organizations to seriously consider hybrid
deployments of cloud and dedicated services. For dynamic environments with a high
degree of unpredictability in growth and/or seasonality, hybrid architectures will be
ideal solutions. [1]

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]

https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/533353/PDFs/Highavailability_White_Paper_Part_1.pdf
[2]https://domino.research.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/papers/0929052195DD8
19C85257D2300681E7B/$File/rc25482.pdf

https://www.arista.com/assets/data/pdf/VirtualClouds_v3.pdf
https://www.vmware.com/pdf/hypervisor_performance.pdf
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/xen/index.html
Virtual Iron Virtualization Blog.
http://www.virtualiron.com/fusetalk/blog/blogpost.cfm?threadid=10&catid=3

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/index.asp

203

editor@iaeme.com

Sugandhi Midha
[7]

VMware, Inc. White paper. Virtualization Overview.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/virtualization.pdf
[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

VMware, Inc. white paper. Virtualization: Architectural Considerations and

Other
Evaluation
Criteria.
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/virtualization_
considerations.pdf
M. Dhanalakshmi And Anirban Basu, Energy Efficient Virtual Machine
Assignment Based On Energy Consumption and Resource Utilization In Cloud
Network, International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology, 7(1),
2016, pp. 4553.
Jayshri Damodar Pagare and Dr. Nitin A Koli, Performance Analysis of An
Energy Efficient Virtual Machine Consolidation Algorithm In Cloud Computing,
International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology, 6(5), 2015, pp.
2435.
R Suchithra, Dr.N.Rajkumar, Virtual Machine Placement In A Virtualized Cloud,
International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology, 3(3), 2012, pp.
435445.
R. Buyya, R. Ranjan and R.N. Calheiros, Modeling and Simulation of Scalable
Cloud Computing Environments and the CloudSim Toolkit: Challenges and
Opportunities, Proc. 7th High Performance Computing and Simulation
Conference, pp.111, Jun. 2009

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCET/index.asp

204

editor@iaeme.com