Red Hat Virtualization
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) is an open-source, easy to use, efficient infrastructure and centralized management platform for virtualized Linux and Windows workloads. Built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technologies, it provides a distributed platform to virtualize traditional applications and build a foundation for cloud-native and container-based workloads.
RHV allows you to provision new virtual servers, and enables efficient use of physical server resources. With RHV, you can manage your entire virtual infrastructure - including hosts, virtual machines, networks, storage, and users - from a centralized graphical user interface or REST API.
RHV offers a high-performance, highly available platform with built-in security for business-critical workloads. RHV provides integrated management with a self-service user portal.
RHV is based on the OVirt open-source project.
RHV Key Components
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Red Hat Virtualization Manager | A service that provides a graphical user interface and a REST API to manage the resources in the environment. The Manager is installed on a physical or virtual machine running Red Hat Enterprise Linux. | Hosts | Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts (RHEL-based hypervisors) and Red Hat Virtualization Hosts (image-based hypervisors) are the two supported types of host. Hosts use Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology and provide resources used to run virtual machines. | Shared Storage | A storage service is used to store the data associated with virtual machines. | Data Warehouse | A service that collects configuration information and statistical data from the Manager. |
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For single server deployments, Ribbon recommends using RHEL as a stand-alone virtual machine host.
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For multi-host deployments, Ribbon recommends deploying RHV using the Self-Hosted Engine Architecture, with stand-alone HA services. Note the following: - Ribbon applications provide HA services; the RHV HA services are configured in stand-alone mode.
- Shared storage is optional, based on the storage requirements.
- NFS storage are deployed by the Manager and used for persistent state storage.
- The Manager requires: 2 vCPU, 25 GB disk, 4 GB memory, 1 vNIC.
- You can add more hosts based on the required VM capacity.
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RHV Key Features and Benefits
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Centralized management | - Red Hat Virtualization Manager provides a centralized management system with a search-driven graphical user interface.
- A system dashboard provides access to detailed information, including a global-use overview of central processing units (CPUs), memory, and storage host resources.
- A self-hosted engine provides built-in high availability for Red Hat Virtualization Manager, which is deployed as a virtual appliance.
| Security and hardening | Secure virtualization (sVirt) and Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) technologies are incorporated to secure and harden the hypervisor against attacks aimed at the host or virtual machines (VMs). | Highly available resources | - You can configure VMs for high availability in case of host failure.
- You can configure hosts for power and/or storage-based fencing for high availability.
- Red Hat Virtualization fully supports third-party tools through a REST application programming interface (API) that backs up, restores, and replicates VMs and infrastructure data.
| Automation and integration | - Red Hat CloudForms integrates with Red Hat Virtualization to automate and orchestrate virtual events and provide reporting, chargeback, self-service portals, and compliance enforcement.
- Red Hat Virtualization integrates with OpenStack Glance and Neutron to ease traditional workload migration to private clouds, or to design applications that span virtual and private cloud environments.
- Integration with Red Hat Ansible® Automation streamlines administration and operations for virtualization administrators and engineers by configuring Red Hat Virtualization infrastructure and resources, such as hosts, VMs, networks, and storage.
- Red Hat Virtualization natively supports Red Hat Gluster Storage, and Gluster Storage node management is available through the Red Hat Virtualization administrator portal.
- A RESTful API automates management and programming configurations.
- Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) allows Red Hat Virtualization Manager to integrate with third-party monitoring systems.
| Workload management | - An advanced service-level agreement manager allows administrators to define host and VM policies for underlying infrastructure resources, and guarantee service quality.
- You can add more memory and CPU resources without disrupting applications.
- An oVirt optimizer automatically balances existing VMs within a cluster.
| Cross-platform support | - RHV fully supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6 (32 and 64-bit), 7 (64-bit) and 8 (64-bit).
- It also supports Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 (32- and 64-bit), and 2016, as well as desktop systems Windows 7 and 10 (32- and 64-bit).
| Migrate from other platforms | Red Hat Virtualization Manager, or a command-line tool, helps to migrate workloads from VMware vCenter to Red Hat Virtualization. |
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References
For detailed information on RHV, refer to the following resources:
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RHV General Info | https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-virtualization/ | RHV Quickstart | https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hat-virtualization-43-quick-start | UI Dashboard Examples | https://www.redhat.com/en/about/videos/red-hat-virtualization-43-introduction-and-overview
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/videos/create-and-manage-virtual-machines-using-red-hat-virtualization | OVirt open-source project | https://ovirt.org/ |
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The third-party URLs given in this article can change without notice. |