[Discuss] KVM, virt-manager, and CentOS7

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

markw at mohawksoft.com writes:

> I tried overt on a machine that was already hosting VMs. Needless to say,
> I had to painstakingly restore my KVM environment to get them back.

Yeah, ovirt definitely needs a clean system.

> The thing that I like about KVM and  libvirt is that it works within a
> standard Linux system. I've tried vmware, parallels, and a number of other

Ovirt does, too.  Started with regular (clean) CentOS 7.x install and
followed the instructions to get it installed.  If this isn't a "regular
Linux system" I don't know what is.  Note that ovirt is built on top of
KVM and libvirt, but yes, it does expect to be self-contained.

> vm environments, and they just didn't have the features to get the job
> done. Networking between VMs didn't work or was a $$ feature. Snapshots
> and disk compaction not available. Sharing CPUs during idle. The next step
> up is vShpere and overt, which are so comprehensive that you are buried
> with features and have to, more or less, commit to using their strategy.

You don't have to use all the features, but yes, you do have to live by
the ovirt methodology.

> Sure, if you want to run a large scale vm warehouse, something like overt
> is for you. If you want to host a small-ish number of VMs, or use VMs to
> develop/test software for different environments and operating systems,
> KVM with libvirt is much easier to set-up and use.

I'm running ovirt on a single hardware system; I migrated (am migrating)
off vmware-server-2.  I've got over a dozen VMs running, but the main
feature I needed is a web-based remote console access (so my remote
users don't need shell access in order to access VM consoles).

This is the main feature I wanted and ovirt provides (as did
vmware-server).  I don't think you can get that level of remote access
from KVM + libvirt directly.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available