Whitepaper - Maximizing Virtual Machine Performance

VM performance  is ultimately determined by  the underlying physical hardware  that  serves as  the  foundation  for  your  virtual infrastructure.   The  construction of  this  foundation has become  simpler over  the  years, but  there are  still  several areas  that should be  fine-tuned  in order  to maximize  the VM performance  in your environment. While some of  the content of  this writing will be generic toward any hypervisor, this document focuses on VMware ESX(i) 4.1. This is an introduction to performance tuning and not intended to cover everything in detail. Most topics have links to sites that contains deep-dive information if you wish to learn more.

Whitepaper - Maximizing Virtual Machine Performance