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KVM

KVM

Overview

What is KVM?

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.

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Pricing

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What is KVM?

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

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  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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What is Red Hat Virtualization (RHV)?

Red Hat Virtualization (formerly Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, broadly known as RHEV) is an enterprise level server and desktop virtualization solution. Red Hat Virtualization also contains the functionality of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktop in later editions of the platform.

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Product Demos

Why is KVM winning over VMware vSphere?

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Product Details

What is KVM?

KVM Technical Details

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Frequently Asked Questions

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.

Reviewers rate Live virtual machine backup highest, with a score of 9.7.

The most common users of KVM are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(17)

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Linux KVM is a powerful and free (in the case of using Ubuntu for example) virtualization tool. In our organization KVM plays a significant role in DevNet related implementations (especially by using in pair of network appliances + KVM with a variety of firewall/router/VPN box images). AT&T which is one of our carriers and the most well-known SP is also using KVM in its FlexWare environment (Juniper NFX hardware + KVM + vEX/vSRX images).
  • Lightweight built-in implementation for all *nix based OS.
  • Easy to deploy and manage VMs.
  • Freeware (is you are using a free OS).
  • Monitoring features (unclear SNMP MIB DB, do not support by the monitoring systems, like Solarwinds and etc.)
KVM is the best solution in the case you need to test and turn up any virtual environment with limited vCPU/RAM resources. The obvious area of its use is a network environment when we want to avoid being tied to one type of hardware/vendor and being able to swap from one instance to another with no downtimes. The use of a vSwitch (that supports VLAN tagging) is a significant bonus for network engineers that some other hypervisors do not provide.
Server Virtualization (5)
86%
8.6
Virtual machine automated provisioning
70%
7.0
Management console
90%
9.0
Live virtual machine backup
90%
9.0
Live virtual machine migration
90%
9.0
Hypervisor-level security
90%
9.0
  • Money saving.
The key points why I made my decision for KVM in comparison with VMWare are: Freeware software (I am using an Ubuntu server OS), Fewer resources usage, vSwitch using that provides the ability to configure dot1q trunks to/between VMs, Stability, and simplicity of using/troubleshooting, Well-known interface (for Linux geeks).
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use virtualisation to segregate workloads and to reduce blast radius of certain classes of problems. Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is an open-source, flexible, and performant solution to our needs. It runs natively via virt-manager on SUSE-based products, which we use prefer for production usage.
  • high-performance virtualisation
  • no major problems with kvm
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is available for Linux systems, and most of the time supported by the operating system vendor. I would recommend using Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)whenever attempting to virtualise workloads on Linux.
Server Virtualization (4)
50%
5.0
Virtual machine automated provisioning
100%
10.0
Live virtual machine backup
100%
10.0
Live virtual machine migration
N/A
N/A
Hypervisor-level security
N/A
N/A
  • KVM just works and gets out of the way
  • KVM is working great with other open-source technologies like QEMU and libvirt
Compared to VirtualBox, KVM has simpler licensing terms and is supported by the operating system vendor. KVM also has more mature integrations with other open-source projects. Automating provisioning is simple with KVM since it is available in the package repositories of Linux distributions.
openSUSE Leap, openSUSE Open Build Service (OBS), openSUSE Tumbleweed
Stenio Pereira Filho | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) as part of our storage solution (OpenStack based). Our solution provides low-cost disk volumes to researchers to use for archiving and data backup. The volumes are provided by KVM virtual machines orchestrated by OpenStack Cinder. It was easier to implement this solution with KVM than XenServer Hypervisor.
  • Easy way to work with OpenStack
  • Better performance with the Linux OS
  • Lowest Cost
  • Complex networking
  • GPU processing is not fully supported
  • It's hard to set up without support tools
I recommend using KVM if you want to start a proof of concept of OpenStack services because it is very simple to configure and has much documentation about it. If your IT environment is Linux based, KVM is a great alternative to virtualize your infrastructure. It works with Windows virtual machines, but it is better with Linux obviously.
Server Virtualization (5)
50%
5.0
Virtual machine automated provisioning
50%
5.0
Management console
50%
5.0
Live virtual machine backup
N/A
N/A
Live virtual machine migration
70%
7.0
Hypervisor-level security
80%
8.0
  • Capital expenditure costs are low, because is open-source and free
  • Operational expenditure costs are medium because it's necessary [to have] an IT team with experience in Linux
  • First step to the virtualization world. Wake up, we are in the 21st century
It is a very reliable solution that can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with low overhead. It is a free and open source software. Easy to use withOpenStack.
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