Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3 Frequently Asked Questions

7/27/2019 Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3 Frequently Asked Questions

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redhat.com

Answer:

The web admin is fully HTML based with integrated reporting, dashboards, and tasks

Live snapshots of virtual machines (VMs) available

Storage live migration of VM disk between storage domains available

Storage integration with Red Hat Storage server and enhanced management capabilites within

RHEV Manager provided

Increased number of supported storage domains

Improved scalability now with 160 virtual CPUs per VM and 2TB virtual RAM per VM

Enhanced management capabilites with quotas for storage, CPU, and memory

Disk management available with a new UI for managing internall and external (direct lun) disks

Hot plug/unplug VMs network interface

Answer: The Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization subscription is sold per managed hypervisor

socket pair and costs $999/socket pair per year for business-hour (Standard) support or $1499/

socket pair per year for 24x7 (Premium) support. Included in the subscription fee is Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization Manager (enterprise management system), the Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor, all product features, and product support.

Like all Red Hat products, there is no up-front license fee. Rather, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

is sold on a subscription basis that costs the same each year and includes product access, support,

updates, and patches. There is one offering of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization that comprises all

product features, so there are no multiple editions, add-ons, or virtual RAM usage charges.

Question: What are the new

feature highlights in Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization 3.2?

Frequently asked questions

red HAt enterPrise VirtuALiZAtion 3

Question: How is Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization pack-

aged and priced?


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2redhat.com FAQ Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3

Answer:

Choicewithnoproprietarylock-in: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is the only open

source, enterprise-ready virtualization platform on the market today. Therefore, Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization customers are not limited to what one company believes they

need and are not forced into vendor lock-in.

Cost: Based on open source software and offered through a subscription model, the pricing of

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is signicantly less than other virtualization solutions. There are

no complicated product editions nor costly add-ons. All features and components are included in

one simplied subscription offering. Learn more at

redhat.com/products/virtualization/server.

Scalabilityandperformance: The Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Kernel-based Virtual

Machine (KVM) technology is an industry-leading platform based on independent, public SPECvirt

benchmarks capable of supporting the highest possible virtual machine density, translating tofewer server hosts and lower infrastructure costs.

Enterprisemanagement:Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization offers a feature-rich server virtual-

ization management system that provides advanced capabilities for hosts and guests, including

high availability, live migration, storage management, system scheduler, and more.

Security: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization provides unmatched, military-grade security with the

hardened, kernel-level SELinux and sVirt security technologies, which were developed in con-

junction with the United States Department of Defense and ensure isolation between VMs and

between each machine and the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor.

IntegratedVDI:Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization integrates the features and functionality for

deploying both virtualized servers and complete virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) within the

same cluster, at no additional cost. Choose to deploy both Linux and Windows servers and/ordesktops.

Answer:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (32-bit and 64-bit)




Windows XP Service Pack 3 and newer (32-bit)

Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and newer (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)

Windows 2012 (64-bit)

Question:

What sets Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization

apart from its competitors?

Question: What guest oper-

ating systems does Red Hat


support?


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Question: Is Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization fully

open source?

Question: Is there a demo

or evaluation version?

Question: Does Red Hat

offer training and certica-

tions for Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization?

Question: Are customers

using Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization to

support their business-critical

applications?

Question: I understand that

my Red Hat Enterprise Linux

subscription includes the

KVM hypervisor. Can I just

use this subscription and not

purchase Red Hat Enterprise

Virtualization?

Answer:

Up to 200 hypervisor hosts in one cluster

Host supports up to 160 CPUs and 2TB of memory

Guests support up to 160 vCPUs and 2TB memory

Answer: Yes, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is the only open source, enterprise-ready virtual-

ization platform on the market today. Both the hypervisor and enterprise management software of

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization are fully open.

In addition to the KVM hypervisor and Linux kernel, both of which are open source projects, Red Hat

has donated its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager source code to the oVirt project to

develop future versions of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. This is a fully open source project, with

participation from individuals around the globe as well as companies such as Cisco, Intel, NetApp,IBM, SuSE, and Canonical that are committed to an open virtualization alternative.

Answer: Yes, there is a free 30- or 60-day downloadable evaluation available for Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization 3. Get system requirements, step-by-step evaluation labs, documentation,

and access to the Red Hat Customer Portal community with tips and guidance for a successful evalu-

ation at redhat.com/promo/rhev3 .

Answer: Yes, Red Hat offers a four-day course, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RH318), that

explores Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization features. Students acquire the skills and knowledge to

effectively create, deploy, manage, and migrate Linux and Microsoft Windows VMs. Students who

successfully complete this course are also prepared to take the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

Certication Exam (EX318) and earn the Red Hat Certied Virtualization Administrator (RHCVA)

certication.

Answer: Yes, since Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization was released in 2009, there has been very

strong customer adoption. Customers around the world who rely on Red Hat to build their mission-

critical infrastructures are moving to the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization platform and have seen

improved performance, scalability, and security while cutting costs. These customers come from all

industry areas and include many enterprises you know, including DreamWorks, Qualcomm, and IBM.

Learn more at redhat.com/customersuccess .

Answer: To effectively administer an environment, customers that virtualize more than one server

or a cluster of servers will need the enterprise management capabilities of high availability, live

migration, and workload balancing, which are included in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization sub-

scription. The KVM hypervisor is included in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system and is

enabled outofthebox to support a Red Hat Enterprise Linux/KVM virtualized environment. This

works well for a single hypervisor as long as there is available Linux expertise who can build and

manage the environment using the LibVirt tool kit.

Question: What are the

scalability limits of Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization 3?


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Question: What appli-

cations are certied to

run on Red Hat Enterprise

Virtualization?

Question: I do not

have any Linux experi-

ence. Would I be able to

install and deploy Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization, or

do I need to learn Linux rst?

Question: What is needed

to run Red Hat


Answer: Any application that is certied for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is certied on Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization. There are always a handful of vendors that have their own separate cer-

tication tracks, but the Red Hat certication program for Red Hat Enterprise Linux ISVs includes

the KVM certication, this means that all applications that have been certied to run on Red Hat

Enterprise Linux are certied to run on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

Answer: Linux experience is not required to install and deploy Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

The Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager enterprise management system uses a web-based

graphical interface with context-sensitive help. System administrators can manage their virtual

infrastructures from this single console with no Linux knowledge.

However, the setup and installation of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization will require that the Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization Manager server is installed on a server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

and that the hypervisor hosts are installed with the KVM hypervisor included in Red Hat

Enterprise Linux. Both of these activities are well documented and occur only during initial

installation.

Answer: A recommended minimum conguration includes:

Management server:

Quad-core or multiple dual-core processor

16GB RAM

50GB writeable disk space

1 NIC with minimum bandwidth of 1Gbps

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 x86_64 subscription (not included)

Hypervisor host servers:

Quad core or multiple dual-core processors

Intel VT or AMD-V extensions

26GB RAM plus 1GB per VM

12GB+ internal storage

Multiple NICs with minimum bandwidth of 1Gbps

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor (included) or the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

subscription (purchased separately)

Administrator console with Microsoft Windows XP, 7 or Windows 2008/2008R2,Internet Explorer 9 or higher or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Firefox 17 or higher


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Answer: A Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription is required for any guest virtual server running

in a virtualization environment and is sold separately from Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

Red Hat offers several Red Hat Enterprise Linux product SKUs for two-socket, four-socket, and

eight-socket servers that entitles the customer to run one, four, or an unlimited number of Red Hat

Enterprise Linux virtual instances.

For more information, visit redhat.com/store .

Answer: The self-service power user portal is a cloud computing portal that is designed to provide

self-provisioning capabilities to end users. Depending on permissions, the portal allows users access

to perform tasks that were previously available only through the administrator console. The portal

enables administrators to congure specic access and maintain control over both virtual and physi-

cal infrastructure resources to users or groups based on their self-service requirements or needs.

Empowering users to create, run, and test environments on their own time with restricted access to

the needed environments reduces IT and administrator requests.

Answer: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager collects extensive information about the virtu-

alization environment that it stores into a Postgres database. With Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

3.0, a new reporting engine was included along with a number of pre-dened dashboards and

reports that are accessible through a web interface. The user can use or customize the predened

reports or create new ones that can be rendered to screen, printed, or exported to a variety of

formats, including PDF, Excel, CSV, Word, RTF, and other formats.

Answer: The new RESTful API allows users to integrate Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager

with their own applications. All management functions are exposed in the API interface. A Python-

based command line interface allows for scripting and automation and has been developed with the

upstream community.

Answer: Hooks are a mechanism for customization so that administrators can dene scripts to

modify VM denitions or run system commands. For example, administrators can use these hooks

to add extra options such as CPU pinning, watchdog devices, direct LUN access, and more. Sample

hooks of common custom features are included as examples.

Answer: With MLA, administrators are able to grant users as much or as little control over the

environment as required. When permissions are granted over an object with children in the object

hierarchy (e.g., clusters that have attached hosts), the user is granted permission over both the

selected object and its children. This capability is very useful when empowering users for specic

administrative capability through the self-service power user portal.

Answer: Yes, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3 can now use the local storage of Red HatEnterprise Virtualization Hypervisor and Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts. Local storage uses a dedi-

cated local lesystem for VMs and templates. This capability is particularly useful for supporting

a proof of concept using the local hypervisor storage instead of a more expensive shared storage

device.

Question: How do I pur-

chase the Red Hat

Enterprise Linux operating

system to be deployed as a

virtual guest in my Red Hat


environment?

Question: What is the self-

service power user portal?

Question: What is the his-

torical reporting capability?

Question: What is the

purpose of the RESTful API?

Question: What are

hooks?

Question: What is the value

of multi-level administration

(MLA) support?

Question: Does Red HatEnterprise Virtualization

support local storage?


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Question: How can

I upgrade an earlier

version of Red Hat


to the latest release?

Question: Are there

migration tools to migrate

virtual machines from ESX/

ESXi and Xen to Red Hat


Question: What are

the back-end storage

requirements?

Question: Where can I learnmore about Red Hat?

Answer: The migration tools that are available to assist in this process are documented in

the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization installation guide. You can choose to update just Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization Manager without updating and not the hypervisors or the host servers

(e.g. they could continue to run the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x-based hypervisors in compatibil-

ity mode) you can also update both Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager and the hosts to the

latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x-based hypervisor technology.

Migrating just Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager can be done without interrupting your

hypervisors or VMs. However, if you need to upgrade your storage and hypervisors, you must bring

down your VMs, export them, create new Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x hypervisors, and import your

virtual machines to the new hypervisors. Learn more at

docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Virtualization/.

Answer: Yes, moving from one hypervisor to another requires a conversion, but there are virtual-

to-virtual (V2V) migration tools that will do this work for Xen and VMware images, including the

Virt-v2v tool. This tool can automatically export the VM image, pull out the disk image, and complete

modications to that image (e.g., move from the VMware vmdk format to a native KVM format, pull

out VMware drivers or Xen drivers, insert the KVM drivers, remove VMware tools, and insert Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization tools). There are also V2V migration tools available from some of Red Hats

partners, including Acronis.

Answer: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization uses a centralized storage system that can be NFS,

Red Hat Storage Server, IBM GPFS, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel storage protocols. And as far as physical

storage, any of the storage systems that are supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux are supported

by Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

Answer: Visit redhat.com/virtualization .

Technical and installation documentation can be found at

access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Virtualization.


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Answer: Key features include:

Integrated connection broker to connect users to their desktops, whether for new desktops or

existing ones

Power user portal that provides self-publishing functionality to designated users to create, access,

and manage virtual resources (VMs, templates, snapshots, storage, and more) based on cong -

ured privileges

Support for SmartCard authentication into the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization user portal, as

well as virtual desktop

Copy and paste support between guest VMs and the client

Support for Windows and Linux virtual desktops from Windows or Linux clients (connect with any

combination)

SPICE remote-rendering protocol that provides a user experience comparable to a local desktop

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager provides automated policies and features for desktop

pooling, templates, thin provisioning, user access, pre-starting VMs, and much more

Answer: Yes, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is a complete virtualization management solution

for server and desktop virtualization, allowing you to manage both virtual servers and virtual desk-

tops in the same virtualization and management infrastructure. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

provides support for Windows and Linux desktop operating systems as virtual guests and support

for desktop management functionality.

Answer: SPICE is a high-performing, dynamic, and adaptive remote rendering protocol, able to

deliver an end-user experience that is nearly indistinguishable from that of a physical desktop PC.

Specically designed and created for the purpose of remotely accessing virtualized desktops, SPICE

is the protocol used to connect a user to a virtualized desktop when using Red Hat

Enterprise Virtualization.

Answer: The power user portal provides self-publishing capabilities to end users. Administrators

can specify users and groups to be granted access privileges to the portal. More precisely, admin-

istrators can congure specic usability options over both virtual and physical infrastructure

resources to each user or group, based on his/her self-service requirements or needs. Empowering

users to create, run, and test environments on their own time, with restricted access to the needed

environments, reduces IT and administrator requests.

For example, administrators can grant the development team privileges to create new VMs based on

the templates they allow them to use. Granular control policies can allow them to create and start

new VMs, but they cannot stop VMs. Additionally, users can be restricted with quotas around quanti-

ties of resources used (e.g., VMs started, maximum percentage of memory utilized by that user, etc.).

Question: What desktop-

related features are included

in Red Hat


VirtuALiZed desKtoPs

Question: Can I run desktop

operating systems

on Red Hat



SPICE protocol?


power user portal?


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Question: What sets the

desktop VDI capabilities apart

from competing VDI solutions?

Answer:

Cost: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is signicantly less expensive than VMware View and Citrix

XenDesktop. Additionally, Red Hat includes all virtualization components in one simplied offer -

ing: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. This includes the hypervisor, the management system, the

user portal, and technical support. VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop break each of these com-ponents out into separate products with separate costs.

Heterogenousguests: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization supports both Windows and Linux desk-

tops as guest VMs. VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop only support Windows.

Serversanddesktops:Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization includes full functionality for both server

and desktop virtualization on the same infrastructure, under one simple subscription, based on a

per socket-pair, per year model. This means that a Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization subscription

entitles customers to run unlimited quantities of server and/or desktop VMs (Windows and Linux)

on their entitled servers. However, VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop restrict you to Windows

desktop operating systems and charge their licenses on a per-desktop model.

Userexperience:Unlike competing protocols, the SPICE remote rendering protocol has been

designed explicitly for remote virtual desktop usage, and provides an incredible user experience

comparable to that of a physical or local PC.

Scalabilityandperformance:Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is built using Kernel-based Virtual

Machine (KVM) technology. Based on independent public benchmarks, such as the SPECvirt

benchmark, this hypervisor has proven to be an industry-leading platform, beating out the market

leaders in both scalability and performance. Ultimately, these attributes result in the highest pos-

sible VM density, which translates to fewer server hosts required to maintain an environment and

lower infrastructure costs for the customer.

FAQ RedHatEnterpriseVirtualization3

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Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3 Frequently Asked Questions