Modular Private Trials

A year ago, VPSBenchmarks introduced Private Trials. Private trials allow running the exact same set of tests that are reported for all providers on vpsbenchmarks.com on your own private servers at a low cost. VPSBenchmarks private trials are the easiest way to run benchmarks on cloud servers, record and organize the results to facilitate comparisons with other servers.

The modular private trials aim to add flexibility to the process and to make it possible to get results faster.

Modular trials are private trials where you choose which tests to run and how many times to run them. If you want to run a short trial with only a Sysbench test, you can do it with modular trials. If you want to tune the configuration of your hypervisor for best performance, you can run multiple iterations of the same test with different configurations.

Setup a Modular Trial

To start a modular private trial, set it up the normal way by entering the server connection information at https://www.vpsbenchmarks.com/vps_instances/new. Then when the setup is complete, you are presented with a choice: start a regular or a modular private trial.

If you choose "modular", then no test will be run automatically. Instead, you can choose between 4 buttons to start individual tests: Web Runs, Sysbench, Network Transfers or Endurance. Pick a test, give it a name in the following dialog box, let the test run and repeat until all the tests you're interested in have run. The test name and optional description are needed to recognize this particular iteration of the test in comparisons.

As opposed to regular private trials, the modular private trials receive no grade since they may not have all tests required to calculate them.

The cost of modular private trials is 0.25 private trial credit per test with a minimum of 1 credit per trial. Naturally, the cost of a regular private trial stays at 1 credit. You can buy private trial credits from https://www.vpsbenchmarks.com/products/private_trial.

Compare Modular Tests

All tests of same type in the same modular trial can be compared. The trial page for modular trials shows the full list of tests grouped by type and allows selecting a subset for comparison. For example if you select all the Web Runs test in the modular private trial, the comparison page will show charts for all web runs metrics with the results of the previously selected tests.

A number of improvements have also been made to all private trials, regular or modular:

Share Private Trials

A url to the private trial that is identified by a UUID is generated for all private trials. That means that whoever you give this url to can review test results for your private trial and compare them to other trials. Of course the private trial execution stays under your control, the link does not give access to the VPS instance connection information, nor does it allow managing the private trial.
Note that it is forbidden to share this url on a public website or in a marketing campaign.

Kill a running test

If a test takes longer than you expected and you need the VPS for other purposes, it is now possible to stop the test while it's running. After a test is stopped, it can be restarted using the "Retry" button.

Filter the private trial list

It is now possible to type a substring of the private trial name or description to filter the list of private trials and easily find those that you are looking for.
https://www.vpsbenchmarks.com/vps_instances

Delete a private trial

Private trials that are no longer needed or relevant can be deleted from the private trial list page. Be careful, all test results associated with the deleted trial will be removed.

Please give modular trials a try and send feedback to feedback@vpsbenchmarks.com!