Item: Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
Rating: 9
Author: Robert Munteanu

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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.

Pros and Cons

high-performance virtualisation

no major problems with kvm

Return on Investment

KVM just works and gets out of the way
KVM is working great with other open-source technologies like QEMU and libvirt

Alternatives Considered

Oracle VM VirtualBox

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.

Key Insights

Do you think Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) again?

Yes

Other Software Used

openSUSE Leap, openSUSE Open Build Service (OBS), openSUSE Tumbleweed

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

KVM - Open-Source virtualisation solution

Overall Satisfaction with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)