Comments on: Red Hat makes KVM its Linux virtualization of choice http://practical-tech.com/infrastructure/red-hat-makes-kvm-its-linux-virtualization-of-choice/ for practical people. Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:04:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: BOFH Hunter » Blog Archive » A peak into RHEL 5.4 http://practical-tech.com/infrastructure/red-hat-makes-kvm-its-linux-virtualization-of-choice/comment-page-1/#comment-839 BOFH Hunter » Blog Archive » A peak into RHEL 5.4 Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:30:39 +0000 http://practical-tech.com/?p=1406#comment-839 [...] Red Hat appears to be taking virtualization quite seriously, and they appear to be choosing KVM as their virtualization method of choice. There’s a rather interesting article over at Practical Tech discussing the upcoming virtualization additions to the RHEL 5 line in the next point release. Have a read over the full article at http://practical-tech.com/infrastructure/red-hat-makes-kvm-its-linux-virtualization-of-choice/ [...] [...] Red Hat appears to be taking virtualization quite seriously, and they appear to be choosing KVM as their virtualization method of choice. There’s a rather interesting article over at Practical Tech discussing the upcoming virtualization additions to the RHEL 5 line in the next point release. Have a read over the full article at http://practical-tech.com/infrastructure/red-hat-makes-kvm-its-linux-virtualization-of-choice/ [...]

]]> By: sjvn http://practical-tech.com/infrastructure/red-hat-makes-kvm-its-linux-virtualization-of-choice/comment-page-1/#comment-835 sjvn Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:42:59 +0000 http://practical-tech.com/?p=1406#comment-835 In addition to all that, another thing Red Hat likes about it is that since KVM's part of Linux, you don't have to add say memory management to it. You just use Linux's built-in memory management and life is good. Steven In addition to all that, another thing Red Hat likes about it is that since KVM’s part of Linux, you don’t have to add say memory management to it. You just use Linux’s built-in memory management and life is good.

Steven

]]> By: pogson http://practical-tech.com/infrastructure/red-hat-makes-kvm-its-linux-virtualization-of-choice/comment-page-1/#comment-834 pogson Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:32:21 +0000 http://practical-tech.com/?p=1406#comment-834 This is an interesting development. It looks like a lot is coming together here. I was curious why KVM was chosen. I read at http://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2007/ols2007v1-pages-225-230.pdf that KVM offers these advantages: • On the developer level, there are many opportu- nities for reusing existing functionality within the kernel, for example, the scheduler, NUMA support, and high-resolution timers. • On the user level, one can reuse the existing Linux process management infrastructure, e.g., top(1) to look at cpu usage and taskset(1) to pin virtual machines to speci?c cpus. Users can use kill(1) to pause or terminate their virtual ma- chines. To me, being root at the root of a tree of virtual machines sounds pretty cool. With VirtualBox, I can set up sshd on the machines and use scripts just as I can with real machines but KVM sounds like a smoother method of virtualizing. If the kernel gang change anything, it is likely that the virtualization system would change smoothly with it. That is a big plus. I am not sure whether adding more features to the kernel is a good idea, but the kernel is a beautiful thing and one of the best features of GNU/Linux. I trust RedHat would not make this move unless they were sure it was the right thing to do, technically. We shall see how it turns out. This is an interesting development. It looks like a lot is coming together here.

I was curious why KVM was chosen. I read at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2007/ols2007v1-pages-225-230.pdf

that KVM offers these advantages:
• On the developer level, there are many opportu-
nities for reusing existing functionality within the
kernel, for example, the scheduler, NUMA support,
and high-resolution timers.
• On the user level, one can reuse the existing Linux
process management infrastructure, e.g., top(1)
to look at cpu usage and taskset(1) to pin
virtual machines to speci?c cpus. Users can use
kill(1) to pause or terminate their virtual ma-
chines.

To me, being root at the root of a tree of virtual machines sounds pretty cool. With VirtualBox, I can set up sshd on the machines and use scripts just as I can with real machines but KVM sounds like a smoother method of virtualizing. If the kernel gang change anything, it is likely that the virtualization system would change smoothly with it. That is a big plus.

I am not sure whether adding more features to the kernel is a good idea, but the kernel is a beautiful thing and one of the best features of GNU/Linux. I trust RedHat would not make this move unless they were sure it was the right thing to do, technically. We shall see how it turns out.

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