Does virtualization cause a performance hit when compared with running an OS on “bare metal”?
It’s negligible. Hypervisor technologies have evolved to a point where most applications have a performance hit of only a couple of percent. In the worst case scenario it can be up to 10 or 12 percent for applications with extremely heavy disk input/output. The benefits of virtualization over bare-metal applications include flexibility and maximization of resources. If you don’t have to stick to the one-application-one-server model, you need fewer servers, and less space, power, cooling, and maintenance staff.
