We primarily use it to write the payroll solution fort Windows Server 2012 and 2018.
Business Engineer and Consultant at All-Tech
A solution with an easy initial setup that's scalable and stable
Pros and Cons
- "Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware."
- "The solution should be more user friendly. We are struggling with the command lines."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The solution is very light when you are putting your Operating System on it. You forget that there's a virtual layer on your solution. You are using it as if it was a whole computer. It's like having an entire computer that you've launched and have running with the Operating System that you need to work with.
What needs improvement?
The solution should be more user friendly despite that some interesting graphical solutions are available to manage the VMs. it would be usefull that the solution integrate the VM snapshot features and make it graphical, so we have a VM infrastructure more complete and easy the backup/restore in case of issue.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution since 2014.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. It's been stable since I started using it in 2014.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scaling the solution is easy. You just have to add more hardware.
How are customer service and support?
I've never needed to contact technical support. To me, that's a sign of a good solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. There is a lot of documentation online, so if there is a problem the online information will help you.
Deployment only took one hour.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the implementation myself.
What other advice do I have?
We're using the on-premises deployment model. We're using the community version of the solution.
I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
CEO at BRIGHT-i SYSTEMS LIMITED
An affordable open-source virtualization technology that's easy to manage
Pros and Cons
- "I like that it's easy to manage. It's also more powerful when it comes to security than others. That point of view is the one consideration. The other consideration is that it's cost-effective."
- "Technical support could be better. In the next release, I would like to see an improved user interface and dashboard. This type of improvement will make it easy or help our engineers understand the solution from a requirement point of view."
What is our primary use case?
We're a system integrator company, and we implement solutions in these categories based on the requirements and related solutions. Sometimes our logic and security concerns are feature-oriented. Due to that reason, we're working on a case-to-case basis, and we use KVM for some clients.
What is most valuable?
I like that it's easy to manage. It's also more powerful when it comes to security than others. That point of view is the one consideration. The other consideration is that it's cost-effective.
What needs improvement?
Technical support could be better. In the next release, I would like to see an improved user interface and dashboard. This type of improvement will make it easy or help our engineers understand the solution from a requirement point of view.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with KVM for about three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution. I haven't had any complaints from the customers.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support could be better. If I compare it to other systems, support services need to be upgraded. For example, VMware provides support instantly. That's our previous experience. If a client asks for support, they give a prompt response. They even try to connect to a remote expert and solve the problems that way.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It's quite user-friendly and easy for those who are used to Linux and Oracle environments. But if they're not used to it, then it could be a little complex.
What about the implementation team?
We are an integrator, and we implement this solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is fair compared to others. But in our local market, it's a problem to get budget approval from management. That's why they are trying to get those products so we can give them the price benefit. But if you consider the international market or other products, it's sometimes better than their price.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution, especially for the banking sector, hospitals, and NGOs.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give KVM an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
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November 2024
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IT expert/sys admin at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
An open source virtualization technology lets you turn Linux into a hypervisor
Pros and Cons
- "The key aspect is that the KVM directly interacts with the Kronos. There's no clear indication of indirect communication with Kronos. It is not linked to Kronos, and interaction is straightforward without any intermediaries."
- "I believe KVM offers a unified answer, while ProxMark addresses orchestration. KVM lacks orchestration. If the aim is to centrally oversee multiple KVMs – let's say to freeze them – a centralized management solution is absent."
What is our primary use case?
KVM is quite lightweight, not burdened by excessive resource demands. It's straightforward and convenient. Personally, I find it uncomplicated due to its limited graphical user interface (GUI) and reliance on the command line.
What is most valuable?
The key aspect is that the KVM directly interacts with the Kronos. There's no clear indication of indirect communication with Kronos. It is not linked to Kronos, and interaction is straightforward without any intermediaries.
What needs improvement?
I believe KVM offers a unified answer, while ProxMark addresses orchestration. KVM lacks orchestration. If the aim is to centrally oversee multiple KVMs – let's say to freeze them – a centralized management solution is absent.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with KVM for six months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is guaranteed due to its open-source nature, ensuring reliable deployment. KVM's internal deployment is secure. The primary aspect is its upcoming release of significant features. I would rate it nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution, and I would rate it six out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is provided by the community, which is the foundation of open source, rather than through subscription-based support.
How was the initial setup?
It is easy to setup this solution. The relevance of KVM varies based on your situation. It significantly differs between scenarios. Some individuals utilize it for retail, implying a compact setup with a few VMs, perhaps around four. The scenario determines the specifics. For instance, if there are twelve VMs, the setup process consumes an hour.
You simply need to click the address or follow the sequence. Initially, download the necessary packages, including KVM and others. If you're using a KVM distributor, running 'App Get install KVM' suffices. Once the packages are installed, verify the live web services. Then, confirm the services are operational before proceeding with commands. Deploying KVM is straightforward
This process can be managed by a single individual. The involvement is primarily on the software side, not the hardware aspect of deployment. It's a user-friendly software deployment process.
What other advice do I have?
This solution holds significant importance because when considering payment for products in a smaller setup, clarity might be lacking. However, as your organization expands and adopts numerous solutions, the financial expenses escalates. In contrast, a free pre-established solution seems genuinely sensible in this regard. It is stable and quite affordable so I will rate it 9 out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
KVM allows me to run virtualized environments for my customer projects and to modify the code as it's open-source, although there were stability issues when running I/O intensive tasks.
What is most valuable?
KVM runs virtualized guests with its own kernel, which is very important to me.
How has it helped my organization?
I mainly use it for customer projects, as KVM allows running virtualized environments for free in a very efficient way. Furthermore, it is an open source solution so modifying the code is possible. One might think that this is never necessary for most projects; however, when a specific customer requested an enhancement of the functionality, I was able to provide that. The customer was very impressed that KVM is such a professional solution although it is free.
Over the years, many customers were happy that they were able to choose between VMware, Xen and another alternative - KVM.
What needs improvement?
Setting KVM up and running it with dozens of parameters can be annoying. However, there is a control interface called Virsh (and also a GUI called virt-manager) which allows running KVM guests with a simple config file.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using KVM since 2010, so for fives years in total.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
So far, no issues.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When running I/O intensive tasks, or having a very high amount of network packages which need to reach the guest(s). However, all issues were under control after tuning the config of the KVM guests.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No issues yet.
How are customer service and technical support?
There is no customer service, only the community. It is a free product, based on open source software. However, one can use RHEV (the enterprise virtualization product from Red Hat), then you will be able to contact the Red Hat support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used Xen in the past and switched because the customers requested a solution which allows running a guest with its own Kernel. This is also possible with Xen, but not a common use case, though.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup, when done manually, is complex because you need to be an experienced Linux user or admin, especially as the networking part can be challenging.
What about the implementation team?
I always deploy it on my own.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is free! Use it and if you need enterprise support, make sure to use RHEV, the virtualization product from Red Hat.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
No, because in the open source world, there are not many hypervisors which have the same feature set as KVM.
What other advice do I have?
Make sure to gain a lot of knowledge about virtualization and the way KVM works. Then implement it with libvirt and virt-manager because this makes running KVM guests a lot easier.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Founder at a retailer with 1-10 employees
Free, easy to use, stable, and mature
Pros and Cons
- "It is easy to use, stable, and flexible. It is a pretty mature product, and it is faster than VirtualBox."
- "Its resource usage can be improved."
What is our primary use case?
It is useful for everything for which you would use VirtualBox. It is the kernel virtualization model in Linux. I am using the 5.10 kernel. It comes with the Linux operating system.
What is most valuable?
It is easy to use, stable, and flexible. It is a pretty mature product, and it is faster than VirtualBox.
What needs improvement?
Its resource usage can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for several years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
There is no support for it except in the community. If you want support, you have to pay a company that provides support for this platform.
How was the initial setup?
There is no installation as such.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is free for everyone.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others. If they were using Linux, this is a requirement.
I would rate KVM an eight out of ten. If KVM uses less resources, it might improve my score.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Tech Support Staff with 51-200 employees
Possibility of using KVM Virtualization in Hosting
Virtualization has made a lot of progress during the last decade, primarily due to the development of myriad open source virtual machine hypervisors. This progress has almost diminished the barriers between operating systems. There are mainly two types of virtualizations; Software Virtualiztion and Hardware Virtualization. Up until recently, the focus always has been on softwareemulated virtualization.
KVM
KVM is short for Kernelbased Virtual Machine and makes use of hardware virtualization, i.e., you need a CPU that supports hardware virtualization, e.g. Intel VT or AMDV. Connsidering the time line of virtualization techniques, KVM is a relative newcomer. Several incumbent open source methods exist today, such as Xen, Bochs, UML, Linux VServer, and coLinux, but KVM is receiving a surprising amount of exposure now. KVM is a unique hypervisor. It consists of a loadable kernel module that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module. Using KVM virtualization, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc. The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux. KVM is a relatively new and simple, yet powerful, virtualization engine, which has found its way into the Linux kernel, giving the Linux kernel native virtualization capabilities. Because KVM uses hardwarebased virtualization, it does not require modified guest operating systems, and thus, it can support any platform from within Linux, given that it is deployed on a supported processor.
Advantages of KVM Virtualization
• High Security
• performance and scalability
• Adequate for most cloud deployments
• Simple type2 hypervisor
• Easy to setup
• Open source software
• Run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images.
• Each virtual machine will have private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc
• More flexible compared to other virtualiztion technologies.
• KVM is the best Linux kernelintegrated hypervisor technology.
A typical KVM installation consists of the following components:
• A device driver for managing the virtualization hardware; this driver exposes its capabilities via a character device /dev/kvm.
• A userspace component for emulating PC hardware; currently, this is handled in the user space and is a lightly modified QEMU process.
• The I/O model is directly derived from QEMU's, with support for copyonwrite disk images and other QEMU features.
How to check System Compatibility ?
First, you need a processor that supports virtualization. For a more detailed list, you can refer xensource wiki. You can tell whether your system supports virtualization by looking at /proc/cpuinfo. This file specifies whether the vmx (Intel) or svm (AMD) extensions are supported. A wide variety of guest operating systems work with KVM hypervisor, including many flavours of Linux, BSD, Solaris, and Windows Operating Systems. A modified version of Qemu can use KVM to run Mac OS X.
KVM vs Existing Hypervisors :
In many ways, VMware is a groundbreaking technology. VMware manages to fully virtualize the notoriously complex x86 architecture using software techniques only, and to achieve very good performance and stability. As a result, VMware is a very large and complex piece of software. KVM, on the other hand, relies on the new hardware virtualization technologies that have appeared recently. As such, it is very small (about 10,000 lines) and relatively simple. Another big difference is that VMware is proprietary, while KVM is open source. KVM will, in the long run, greatly benefit from taking advantage of advancements in the kernel, without developers having to reinvent them, as is the case with Xen.
Xen is a fairly large project, providing both paravirtualization and full virtualization. It is designed as a standalone kernel, which only requires Linux to perform I/O. This makes it rather large, as it has its own scheduler, memory manager, timer handling and machine initialization.
KVM, in contrast, uses the standard Linux scheduler, memory management and other services. This allows the KVM developers to concentrate on virtualization, building on the core kernel instead of replacing it.
QEMU is a userspace emulator. It is a fairly amazing project, emulating a variety of guest processors on several host processors, with fairly decent performance. However, the userspace architecture does not allow it to approach native speeds without a kernel accelerator. KVM recognizes the utility of QEMU by using it for I/O hardware emulation.
KVM vs Existing Hypervisors :
Limitations of KVM virtualiation:
• Currently, KVM supports only Intel and AMD virtualization, whereas Xen supports IBM
• PowerPC and Itanium as well. SMP support for hosts is lacking in the current release.
• Performance tuning.
However, KVM already is further ahead than other hypervisor solutions in some areas and surely will catch up in other areas in the future. KVM is the best technology going forward for open source virtualization.
With the introduction of KVM into the Linux kernel, future Linux distributions will have builtin support for virtualization, giving them an edge over other operating systems. There will be no need for any dualboot installation in the future, because all the applications you require could be run directly from the Linux desktop. KVM is just one more of the many existing opensource hypervisors, reaffirming that open source has been instrumental to the progress of virtualization technology.
The above is a very rough outline of KVM Virtualization, and if you have any questions, we would be happy to talk to you! :)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
The CLI on ESXi only can be executed from a windows PC (if you use the free ESXi). The other option is very, very expensive compared with KVM. This is a major reason why I prefer KVM over VMWare. The support of scripting in ESXi free is very limited, in the other hand, KVM works in a normal linux distribution, so, you have all the power of scripting to do what ever you like.
Cloud Linux Administrator at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Stable and scalable solution
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup was very easy."
- "KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations."
What needs improvement?
KVM is very difficult to manage and run on daily operations. It's also too dependent on other solutions and has no backend customization.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using KVM for five to six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
KVM's stability is fine, assuming it's running on decent hardware.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
KVM is scalable, but it requires a certain amount of technical knowledge to understand how it can scale to other locations.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very easy.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented KVM myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
KVM is free.
What other advice do I have?
I would give KVM a rating of eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Co-Founder and CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Cost-effective, stable and scalable; support for snapshot and revert could be improved. HA features can be improved.
Pros and Cons
- "Very cost-effective."
- "Lacks high availability across clusters as well as support for Apache CloudStack."
What is our primary use case?
We integrate KVM as part of our product. I'm the CTO of our company.
What is most valuable?
The solution is very cost-effective. VMware is exorbitantly priced and compared with other products KVM is much cheaper especially in the public cloud scenario.
What needs improvement?
Their support for snapshot and revert could be improved. I'd also like to see the product achieve high availability across clusters and to have more support for Apache CloudStack.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for over a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is fine, no problems at all.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have worked with certain support vendors and they're fine. In particular, we work with one of the Red Hat partners and we're quite happy.
How was the initial setup?
The complexity or otherwise of the initial setup depends on the situation but generally it's not too difficult. We offer our customers maintenance support which generally involves update patching.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
KVM offers both an open source and licensed version.
What other advice do I have?
Before deployment, it's worth checking whether the solution fits your use case and how it would be used across various large deployments. Test it before implementing.
I rate the solution seven out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
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Interesting responses.
QEMU is the underlying technology for KVM, Xen and Virtualbox.
KVM provides accelerators on top of QEMU, and although KVM does not provide the fancy next>next>done GUI of the others, it provides for fine grained tuning, easier cloud orchestration and the widest range of platform/cpu emulations - and windows runs absolutely fine under KVM, even if you want to run a gaming platform, you can passthrough the video adapter, and access the underlying Linux system via ssh, with surprisingly little performance loss.
Arguments around what is best are subjective and use case is the primary relevance.
Large cloud providers work on standards based deployments - working with 10s of thousands of VMs. OpenStack is the prevailing cloud computing deployment architectural standard. libvirt (qemu/KVM on x86) is the only Hypervisor in group 1, which is 100% compatible with standards and fully supported. Group 2 includes Hyper-v, VMWare, Xen, Group 3 includes docker and LXC.
Large and medium enterprise are on the journey of moving to cloud architectures, and inevitably, they will end up with workload sitting on qemu based hypervisor in the future.
Currently, they typically run VMWare, which was largely responsible for the hypervisor revolution, but computing requirements have grown beyond what can be done 'in house' with a small IT team.
The whole IT industry has grown tremendously in the last 20 years. Large portions of company budgets are consumed by IT expenditure, and with this scale, productivity gains are required to keep IT expenditure under control. Higher utilization, thiner server instances, thiner applications, automation, orchestration, co-location, managed services, outsourcing, transformations, the cloud, IoT. Internal IT teams WILL be reduced to being flight deck administrators, with the hardware and software management being handled by someone else. Someone who has the economies of scale, to do things faster, cheaper and better.
Back to Hypervisors...
The main question is, does your 'server' need a head? Do you need to have a desktop environment and management tools installed in the server? Or can the server have these aspects abstracted from the VM and the tasks performed via APIs? (think about windows server core, or linux). This increases efficiencies in many ways.
If you are looking at virtualization, in the context of running an application interface in a contained operating environment, on your local computer, for whatever reason, the reality is that, those requirements are not the requirements of the industy/enterprise for computing infrastructure that the real hypervisors are being built for.
My advice:
If you want to run your own server, with virtualization, use VMWare free version. Or Xen, or QEMU if you like, whatever you are happy with, and meets your requirements - they can all host windows or linux VMs fine.
If you want to use your desktop/laptop with a few guest vms, run VMWare Player or VirtualBox.
If you're a glutton for punishment, install one of the servers first and passthrough the video card at least, if you're using photoshop or playing a modern game, you'll want the video drivers to have direct access to the card.
And if you want to support IT infrastructure in the future, learn to code, because those days of managing your own DC, installing servers, patching, firewalls, hypervisor GUIs, next next next done jobs, wont be around for ever.