Provisioning times vary based on the platform. Sampling the time to create (apply) and destroy clusters with 1 controller and 2 workers shows (roughly) what to expect.
* DNS propagation times have a large impact on provision time
* Platforms with auto-scaling take more time to provision (AWS, Google)
* Bare-metal provision times vary depending on the time for machines to POST and network bandwidth to download images.
## Network Performance
Network performance varies based on the platform and CNI plugin. `iperf` was used to measture the bandwidth between different hosts and different pods. Host-to-host indicates the typical bandwidth offered by the provider. Pod-to-pod shows the bandwidth between two `iperf` containers. The difference provides some idea about the overhead.
| Platform / Plugin | Theory | Host to Host | Pod to Pod |
* AWS instances are located in the same region. Google instances are located in the same zone (helps bandwidth at the expense of fault tolerance).
* Network bandwidth fluctuates on AWS and Digital Ocean.
* Only [certain AWS EC2 instance types](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/network_mtu.html#jumbo_frame_instances) allow jumbo frames. This is why the default MTU on AWS must be 1480.
* Between Flannel and Calico, performance differences are usually minimal. Platform and configuration differenes dominate.
* Pods do not seem to be able to leverage the hosts' bonded NIC setup. Possibly a testing artifact.