Analyzing GPU Performance in Virtualized Environments: A~Case Study
2026-08-03 • Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster ComputingPerformance
AI summaryⓘ
The authors explain that GPUs help computers run faster, especially for tasks that can be done in parallel. Virtual GPUs (vGPUs) allow multiple virtual machines to share GPU resources, but existing tools don’t effectively track their performance. To fix this, the authors created a new tool that works with Intel’s GVT-g virtualization to collect detailed data and show it through synchronized graphs. This helps developers understand how vGPUs are working and find performance issues more easily.
GPUvirtual GPU (vGPU)Intel GVT-gvirtualizationperformance analysissoftware tracingruntime dataparallel architecturevirtual machine
Authors
Adel Belkhiri, Michel Dagenais
Abstract
The graphics processing unit (GPU) plays a crucial role in boosting application performance and enhancing computational tasks. Thanks to its parallel architecture and energy efficiency, the GPU has become essential in many computing scenarios. On the other hand, the advent of GPU virtualization has been a significant breakthrough, as it provides scalable and adaptable GPU resources for virtual machines. However, this technology faces challenges in debugging and analyzing the performance of GPU-accelerated applications. Most current performance tools do not support virtual GPUs (vGPUs), highlighting the need for more advanced tools. Thus, this article introduces a novel performance analysis tool that is designed for systems using vGPUs. Our tool is compatible with the Intel GVT-g virtualization solution, although its underlying principles can apply to many vGPU-based systems. Our tool uses software tracing techniques to gather detailed runtime data and generate relevant performance metrics. It also offers many synchronized graphical views, which gives practitioners deep insights into GVT-g operations and helps them identify potential performance bottlenecks in vGPU-enabled virtual machines.