KVM Virtualisation from Red Hat

[apaton]

I wasn't sure which forum to put this in, but I stuck with *nix as Im looking for answers from *nix guys and girls.

 

Red Hat have said for at least a year that their virtualisation future will be with KVM. I've heard that XEN will be deprecated in Red Hat 6.

 

Any one using KVM virtualisation from Red Hat 5.4 ? Whats your thoughts , management tools any good?

 

Thanks

 

Andy

[benaus]

I am very interested in trying it out, and probably will in the next few days. I will report back after I do.

 

Mostly interested in the memory deduplication of 2.6.32 kernal.

[james_yale]

I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences too - currently using alot of ESXi which works well but it extremely limited feature wise. XenServer adds in the extra features but doesn't seem have as wide a range of OS support as ESXi, or at least makes the OSes harder to provision.

 

KVM could be the answer, downloading 5.4 now so will give it a shot at some point.

[glennda]

we use KVM on ubuntu, works very well, havn't had a problem with it, not quite as easy to set up as ESXI, but it comes as a optional extra when you install ubuntu 9.04 (optional extra as in when it prompts you to choose lamp install etc)

[dhicks]

we use KVM on ubuntu, works very well, havn't had a problem with it, not quite as easy to set up as ESXI, but it comes as a optional extra when you install ubuntu 9.04 (optional extra as in when it prompts you to choose lamp install etc)

 

Has anyone used Ubuntu 9.10 Cloud Server setup? Does that use KVM or Xen, or do you get a choice of the two or something?

 

--

David Hicks

[glennda]

Has anyone used Ubuntu 9.10 Cloud Server setup? Does that use KVM or Xen, or do you get a choice of the two or something?

 

 

Its 9.10 that its an option, in 9.04 you have to install it using sudo apt-get etc

 

we use qemu/KVM but i think you can set it up as xen not sure

[clodhopper]

We've been trialling KVM on Ubuntu 9.10 & it works really well. We had some help setting it up initially from a company called DNUK who have a developed a product called OVP to make the management all web based. I can't praise them enough for there work on this and I think I'd have less hair if I hadn't used it.

 

We also use the open source based SAN called OSS

 

I''d recommend having a chat with them if you're thinking of using Open Source virtualisation as they run there business on it so quite important to them :-)

 

If you'd like more info just ask :-)

 

Open Virtualization Platform (OVP) | DNUK

Open Storage Server (OSS) | DNUK

[benaus]

We've been trialling KVM on Ubuntu 9.10 & it works really well. We had some help setting it up initially from a company called DNUK who have a developed a product called OVP to make the management all web based. I can't praise them enough for there work on this and I think I'd have less hair if I hadn't used it.

 

We also use the open source based SAN called OSS

 

I''d recommend having a chat with them if you're thinking of using Open Source virtualisation as they run there business on it so quite important to them :-)

 

If you'd like more info just ask :-)

 

Open Virtualization Platform (OVP) | DNUK

Open Storage Server (OSS) | DNUK

 

Good Stuff.

 

I have finally setup a KVM host but am unable to use KSM as I want openvz support also. Unfortunately KSM is only supported in kernel 2.32+ and openvz isn't.

 

The performance of KVM so far for me has been solid and very responsive. I wont be going back to any of the commercial hyper-visors unless there is some major problems I come across.

[apaton]

Thanks for the post guys. I found many people using KVM either Centos, Ubuntu and have good things to say.

 

Red Hat release RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers) which not only provides official support for KVM but provides a cut down KVM hypervisor Linux image and a web based framework to manage the virtual infrastructure. (VM's and Hosts)

 

The Management server runs on a Windows 2003 server! I will say that again the Management server only runs on Windows 2003. I'm sure the technical reason for this is for the provision and management of virtual Microsoft Windows machines (sysprep etc..), but still wasn't expecting the requirement for Windows from a Red Hat product.

 

My second surprise, if you use the RHEV Hypervisor (ESXi style) you have to purchase support/subscription for Red Hat virtual machines. So you need to purchase RHEV at $500 per socket plus subscriptions for you Red Hat VM's. You don't get anything for nothing

 

This product is going after VMware and XenServer with a big focus on management and cost savings.

 

Still have tried the software yet myself, trying to get a demo.

 

 

Andy

[benaus]

snip...

 

The Management server runs on a Windows 2003 server! I will say that again the Management server only runs on Windows 2003. I'm sure the technical reason for this is for the provision and management of virtual Microsoft Windows machines (sysprep etc..), but still wasn't expecting the requirement for Windows from a Red Hat product.

...snip

 

Cross platform management should be a no brainer for this sort of thing. Its one of the reasons I left the other commercial products for opensource KVM.