Red Hat Virtualization (discontinued) Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 6.1 out of 10

Score

6.1 out of 10

Reviews

11 Reviews

RHEV is the best virtualization software

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

March 29, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using RHEV for the virtualization of servers in our environment. Currently, we are using RHEV for nonproduction servers. The best part of RHEV is an open source product in virtualization technology, it is vendor-independent software and a lot more cost-effective and flexible than proprietary solutions. We are managing 100 plus Virtual machines with RHEV in our environment and using the hardware efficiently as well as saving the cost of our project.

Pros

RHEV allow us to install the Operating system image on virtual machines very quickly.
RHEV is an open-source tool, we can easily integrate the solution on any hardware and do a lot of customization.
RHEV is manageable through a Graphical User Interface, which makes it easy for the end-user to manage the RHEV.
Works well on Patching tasks.

Cons

Documentation of RHEV needs more improvement.
RHEV GUI needs a lot of improvements in some versions of RHEV, GUI will not work properly (shows incorrect details of VM ).
Need fast rollout of patch releases.
Need good linux Knowledge to manage the RHEVM.

Likelihood to Recommend

RHEV is well suited for organizations that need a cost-effective and flexible solution for their environment. As its vendor-independent software, easily install on any type of hardware. RHEV provides a GUI interface to manage the software, which makes the management of the software easier for the end-user. RHEV is best for non-production or less critical applications. RHEV can be easily integrated with other REDHAT software.

Naveen Sharma

Consultant in Information Technology at DCM Infotech Ltd (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Infrastructure Architect

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

March 27, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Red Hat Virtualization is used to host virtual machines for our telecommunications applications.

Pros

1- It easy to upload qcow2 images from the browser.
2- It is easy to automate repetitive tasks with Ansible using RHVM API.
3- It is easy to patch the hypervisors.

Cons

1- RHVM API is pretty slow, especially after creating a VM it is not possible to retrieve the VM details (i.e VM's MAC Address) fast enough, where we need to place a pause in our Ansible Playbook, make the automation process slow.
2- RHV is still using collected to monitor the hypervisors which is deviating from Red Hat policy for other RHEL based applications to use PCP to monitor, which is richer in features.
3- It will be great if it is possible to patch the hypervisors using other tools such as satellite and not only via RHVM.
4- In the past Red Hat used to present patches in the z release (i.e. 4.3.z), and features in the y release (i.e 4. y), but starting from 4.4 that is mixed together wherein the Z release you get both patches and features, that is not good because that requires a lot of time to test when we patch as it includes features as well.
5- Engineering team has to be more reactive when new feature is requested.

Likelihood to Recommend

Red Hat Virtualization is suitable for small implementation and hosting VMs. However, when you start asking for additional features or enhancements, the engineering team is not the flexible as other engineering teams in Red Hat. It is very likely they will not accept adding features or in the best case. They wouldn't commit to a plan when it is possible to be available.

Verified User

Professional in Engineering (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Using RHV with KVM is fantastic.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

March 12, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Due to its inclusion in RedHat, RHV is utilized as a one-stop solution for virtual environments. The installation expenses of such a system pose a significant challenge for businesses. We're utilizing RHV instead of VSphere since it's more cost-effective and easier to integrate with KVM.

Pros

RHV issues/bugs can be reported via Bugzilla to RH support. The service is great and typically responds soon.
Red Hat distribution integration is seamless as it is integrated into the kernel.
OpenStack support enables more customized VM templates and network configuration control.

Cons

If the aforementioned can't be done, additional open-source tool compatibility or support.

Likelihood to Recommend

When it comes to managing virtual machines, RHV is the best choice. RHV is a good option if you deal with OpenStack, as it has built-in support for it. In this case, you may not be able to justify the expense. However, adopting something like oVirt (which is related to but not identical to RHV) might be preferable despite the fact that oVirt is not built into the kernel.

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Best in Class Virtualization - Red Hat (RHV)

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 21, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have many servers in our organization running Linux. We have hosted many virtual machines on the same, and many of the company applications are running on those VMs resulting in a cost-effective solution as well as time-saving as it reduces the need for hardware every time our company has IT needs.

Pros

Creating multiple VMs
Save costs as it is open source and comes as Linux kernel Module
Reduces need of multiple hardware everytime you need to scale up

Cons

Sometimes it can be complicated to handle
You need support tools for setting up, without it can be complex
Sometimes performance can drop down

Likelihood to Recommend

If any organization wants to run many many apps with minimal hardware and minimum costing, then it is the best solution. There is no extra cost involved, it comes free with Linux and is open source. If given proper training one or two times, it is easy to install and use as well.

Vandana Yadav

Presales Executive in Information Technology at Corporate Infotech Pvt Ltd (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

1 year of experience

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization to simplify your workflow

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

March 19, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

This was used in an organisation which I was working for, using a client-server architecture. This led to a more consistent environment and prevented *snowflake* desktops, which could be hard to diagnose issues on and provide support for. This also increased security and ultimately ended up saving a significant amount money for the company.

Pros

Standardisation where provisioning the environment became repeatable and predictable.
Easier debugging and understanding the client system.
Improved security and centrally managed.

Cons

Ran into a regression when updating firmware for IGEL
Desktop froze and became non responsive on a few occasions.
Server crashed and took down all the clients in the Thin setup.

Likelihood to Recommend

<ul><li>Well suited for very large organisations with a wide variety of departments.</li><li>Less useful for a single group of developers where the command line is mostly used.</li></ul>

Emile Swarts

Developer in Engineering at Made Tech (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

You don't know Virtualization until you've tried RHEV!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 13, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's currently being used across the organization - it includes all the enterprise-grade features for a less overall TCO as compared to something like VMware's offerings. It's easy to use, manage, and provision and has rock-solid reliability. It's backed with the best support in the industry and uses KVM Virtualization under the hood which is used all throughout the industry by some of the top names (AWS and Rackspace to name a couple).

Pros

Base licensing includes H/A and Live Migration features (you don't have to pay extra for them like VMware).
It's all completely managed through a WebUI - no fat client you have to install.
Very easy to use, manage, provision, and upgrade.

Cons

It's definitely come a long ways from what it used to be and is certainly a lot easier - the initial setup/configuration used to be quite difficult but really isn't anymore.
Better support and third-party integration for backup, snapshots, and restore of VMs like VEEAM for VMware - this is my only complaint. There are companies that offer solutions for RHEV however they're very limited and can be pricey.
I think some improvement can be made for deploying micro and cloud services through RHEV.

Likelihood to Recommend

I believe it's an excellent solution for any scenario which requires virtualization. The only scenario where it might not be the best solution would be in building out a cloud infrastructure - you could certainly integrate RHEV for something like that but I think that either OpenStack or CloudStack might be a better solution for building cloud environments.

Matthew J. Fitzpatrick

President/CEO in Information Technology at Travelers (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

4 years of experience

View profile

RHEV is worth a try if you like open-source software

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

September 12, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am working as a Consultant, so I usually advise other companies in terms of virtualization solutions and implement them.

RHEV is usually used at our customers for providing an open-source based virtualization stack which is very similar to virtualization systems they already have (e.g. libvirt and KVM nodes). Therefore the learning curve is really low when RHEV is introduced to them.

Pros

Providing Virtualization services
Migrating VMs from other virtualization stacks to RHEV
Providing open-source based VDI
Providing a GUI for KVM
Providing HA virtualization

Cons

Native Ceph implementation is still missing
Only few software-defined Storage solutions are supported as storage backends
VM management (with virtual hardware, first boot etc.) is a bit fiddly

Likelihood to Recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is well suited for IT departments which use open-source software already and want to rely on an enterprise virtualization solution which is very similar to the tools they already know.

In addition, RHEV fits in very well to environments already containing other products from Red Hat.

IT departmens with high performance needs should avoid RHEV in some scenarios.

Valentin Höbel

Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure in Information Technology at open *i GmbH (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

2 years of experience

View profile

RHEV up your environment

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 30, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use RHEV across the organization from RND all the way down to our customer support operations. Every level has their own requirements and expectations from software and its use, RHEV provides the organization with a scalable virtualization platform that answers more of todays needs than competitors. We host systems for companies wanting a cloud based solution and the performance from RHEV is right on par with what our needs are.

Pros

RHEV can acquire user and group information from an Active Directory service without a great deal of confusing configuration.
RHEV management is browser-based and can be accessed from any platform.
Online Snapshot capability, provides a better redundancy than vsphere.

Cons

Hot Swappable functionality could be improved upon.
Template importation from external sources.
Better database synchronization when implemented.

Likelihood to Recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization has provided the flexibility we need to offer a highly reliable and scalable cloud solution to our customers. As one of the leading security providers in the world, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization will deliver unparalleled experience to our customers as we embark on a new shift in operations. Our organization has just shifted focus to provide a more robust offering and we were not able to do so without RHEV. There are still some instances where vmware has redhat beat purely due to their maturity in the space.

Ian Neveu

Cloud Services Engineer in Corporate at Entrust Datacard (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

RHEV is a great option as an open-source hypervisor!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

February 29, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

RHEV is being used to implement an open-source hypervisor (KVM) with an easy-to-use front end for our customers. Our organization is exploring the feasibility of using it to deploy to multiple external locations in order to make management of VMs easy for remote administrators. It has a very well documented Python API, which makes automation easier to implement.

Pros

Automation integration
Migration of VMs from one physical host to another
Support for open-source community projects, such as Gluster, Cinder, and Glance

Cons

Product Q&A, regression testing, bug fix turnaround
Standardization of deployment between the baseline products (e.g. stand-alone vs. appliance should support same configuration options)
Improve WebUI navigation

Likelihood to Recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) is well suited for environments where skilled Linux/Python engineers are available to help configure, install, and deploy it. The majority of the back-end of the product is written in Python and when issues arise, engineers will need to parse log files generated by Python. It is not well suited for Microsoft Windows only shops.

Charles Inglese

Senior System Engineer in Information Technology at Exeter Government Services, LLC (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

Make way for RHEV

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 23, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

RHEV is used as a one stop solution for virtual environments due to it being part of the RedHat distro.

Business problems that come with this is the costs associated with the implementation of such a solution.

Pros

Any issues/bugs with RHEV can be fixed by using bugzilla to get in contact with RH support. The support is fantastic and a reply is usually given fairly quickly.
Integration into RedHat distro is seamless as it is already baked into it's kernel.
Support for OpenStack allows for more customization with VM templates and advanced network configuration management.

Cons

I would like to see more cloud automated solutions with RHEV with kickstarting nodes without external assistance with tools such as cobbler/foreman.
If the above cant be done, then more compatibility or support for other open source tools.

Likelihood to Recommend

RHEV is most suited in any situation that requires VM management. If you work with openstack then using RHEV would be something to look at since it does have support for it.

It might be less appropriate if you are just needing to save cost. However, using something like oVirt (similar if not the same as RHEV) would be better even though it would take a little more work to use oVirt as oVirt is not baked into the kernel.

Verified User

Employee in Information Technology (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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