I need to compare the performance of MATLAB and an open-source alternative (eg numpy/scipy) on particular matrices problems on both Windows and Linux. It has been expressly asked that the comparison is executed strictly on the same hardware platform - for obvious comparison reasons.
My question is, would using containers (Windows and Linux distro images) satisfy this requirement?
I believe setting two VMs would satisfy the requirement, but using containers would be much less of a hassle and make the tests easily reproducible on any machine, but I'm not too familiar with their architecture or how they access their host's hardware.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Essentially, when talking about performance tests, you'd want your test machines to be as close as possible to the final end-use machine.
While virtualization and containerization might offer different advantages in terms of ease of setup, reusability and whatever else, they also introduce a degree of distortion in the metrics obtained in such tests due to their architecture and implementation.
I don't know the exact degree to which a performance test on a Windows container would differ from a performance test run on a Windows machine, and if such difference is trivial or not, but the first paragraph answers my question.