I was poking around on the vmark results site earlier on the hunch that somebody might have posted new results based on Nehalem processors and there are some.

The link to the site is here:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html

These preliminary results are interesting since they vary on the specific Nehalem processor used and have "optimized" system configurations to run on but they show a reasonably consistent jump of double or more in the performance that they are providing. I need to look a little deeper to see how close to "deployable" these configurations may be but the results are encouraging. I found it interesting that most of the VMware builds referenced for the tests were all slightly different and all but 1 apparently for vSphere beta versions. One of the Nehalem based server results is for an ESX 3.5 implementation and shows the relative performance gain in that implementation.

All of these new generation servers are offering some interesting upgraded features and some new power and management techniques that will likely raise the stakes in "value" per virtual machine and lowered costs through power, cooling, ease of deployment, better LAN access, etc.

I'd love to hear from any early adopters who are deploying the first shipments in any fashion. I am a reseller and we are quoting many but haven't yet shipped any.

Bill