oVirt is a
free, open-source virtualization
In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...
management platform. It was founded by
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.
Red Hat has become ass ...
as a community project on which
Red Hat Virtualization
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) formerly known as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, is an x86 virtualization product developed by Red Hat, and is based on the KVM hypervisor. Red Hat Virtualization uses the SPICE protocol and VDSM (Virtual Deskt ...
is based. It allows centralized management of
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...
s, compute, storage and networking resources, from an easy-to-use web-based front-end with
platform independent
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...
access.
KVM on
x86-64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...
,
PowerPC64 and
s390x
Linux on IBM Z or Linux on zSystems is the collective term for the Linux operating system compiled to run on IBM mainframes, especially IBM Z / IBM zSystems and IBM LinuxONE servers. Similar terms which imply the same meaning are ''Linux/390'', ...
architecture are the only
hypervisor
A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is calle ...
s supported, but there is an ongoing effort to support
ARM
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between the ...
architecture in a future releases.
Architecture
oVirt consists of two basic components, oVirt engine and oVirt node.
The oVirt engine backend is written in
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
, while the frontend is developed with
GWT web toolkit. The oVirt engine runs on top of the
WildFly
WildFly, formerly known as JBoss AS, or simply JBoss, is an application server written by JBoss, now developed by Red Hat. WildFly is written in Java and implements the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) specification. It runs on multip ...
(former JBoss)
application server
An application server is a server that hosts applications or software that delivers a business application through a communication protocol.
An application server framework is a service layer model. It includes software components available to a ...
. The frontend can be accessed through a webadmin
portal
Portal often refers to:
* Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel
Portal may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Gaming
* ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...
for administration, or a user portal with privileges, and features that can be fine tuned. User administration can be managed locally or by integrating oVirt with
LDAP
The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory servi ...
or
AD services. The oVirt engine stores data in a
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
.
Data warehousing
In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. DWs are central repositories of integra ...
and
reporting capabilities depend on additional history and reports databases that can be optionally instantiated during the setup procedure. A
REST API is available for customizing or adding engine features.
An oVirt node is a
server
Server may refer to:
Computing
*Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients
Role
* Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...
running
RHEL
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version ...
,
CentOS
CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...
,
Scientific Linux
Scientific Linux (SL) was a Linux distribution produced by Fermilab, CERN, DESY and by ETH Zurich. It is a free and open-source operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
This product is derived from the free and open-source software m ...
, or experimentally
Debian
Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...
, with KVM hypervisor enabled and a VDSM (Virtual Desktop and Server Manager)
daemon
Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: , "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.
The word ...
written in
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
. Management of resources initiated from a webadmin portal are sent through the engine backend that issues appropriate calls to the VDSM daemon. VDSM controls all resources available to the node (compute, storage, networking) and virtual machines running on it and is also responsible for providing
feedback
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...
to the engine about all initiated operations. Multiple nodes can be
clustered from the oVirt engine webadmin portal to enhance
RAS
Ras or RAS may refer to:
Arts and media
* RAS Records Real Authentic Sound, a reggae record label
* Rundfunk Anstalt Südtirol, a south Tyrolese public broadcasting service
* Rás 1, an Icelandic radio station
* Rás 2, an Icelandic radio stati ...
.
The oVirt engine can be installed on a standalone server, or can be hosted on a cluster of nodes themselves inside a virtual machine (self-hosted engine). The self-hosted engine can be manually installed or automatically deployed via a
virtual appliance
A virtual appliance is a pre-configured virtual machine image, ready to run on a hypervisor; virtual appliances are a subset of the broader class of software appliances. Installation of a software appliance on a virtual machine and packaging that i ...
.
oVirt is built upon several other projects including
libvirt
libvirt is an open-source API, daemon and management tool for managing platform virtualization. It can be used to manage KVM, Xen, VMware ESXi, QEMU and other virtualization technologies. These APIs are widely used in the orchestration laye ...
,
Gluster
Gluster Inc. (formerly known as Z RESEARCH) was a software company that provided an open source platform for scale-out public and private cloud storage. The company was privately funded and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with an engin ...
,
PatternFly, and
Ansible
An ansible is a category of fictional devices or technology capable of near-instantaneous or faster-than-light communication. It can send and receive messages to and from a corresponding device over any distance or obstacle whatsoever with no d ...
.
Features
Virtual
datacenters, managed by oVirt, are categorized into storage, networking and clusters that consist of one or more oVirt nodes.
Data integrity
Data integrity is the maintenance of, and the assurance of, data accuracy and consistency over its entire Information Lifecycle Management, life-cycle and is a critical aspect to the design, implementation, and usage of any system that stores, proc ...
is ensured by
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
, with agents that can use various resources such as
baseboard management controllers or
uninterruptible power supplies
An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power system ...
.
Storage is organized within entities called storage domains and can be local or shared. Storage domains can be created using the following storage solutions or protocols:
*
NFS
*
iSCSI
Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...
*
Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data cen ...
*
POSIX
The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interf ...
compliant
filesystem
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
*
GlusterFS
Gluster Inc. (formerly known as Z RESEARCH) was a software company that provided an open source platform for scale-out public and private cloud storage. The company was privately funded and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with an engineer ...
Network management allows defining multiple
VLAN
A virtual local area network (VLAN) is any broadcast domain that is partitioned and isolated in a computer network at the data link layer (OSI layer 2).IEEE 802.1Q-2011, ''1.4 VLAN aims and benefits'' In this context, virtual, refers to a physi ...
s that can be
bridged
Bridging may refer to:
Construction
* Building of bridges across a gap
* Cross bracing used between joists to stabilize them
Electronics and computing
* In electronics, using a low source impedance to drive a large load impedance for maximum vol ...
to the
network interfaces available on the nodes. Configuration of
bonded interfaces,
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
es,
subnet
A subnetwork or subnet is a logical subdivision of an IP network. Updated by RFC 6918. The practice of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.
Computers that belong to the same subnet are addressed with an identical ...
masks and
gateways on managed nodes are all supported within webadmin portal interface, as is
SR-IOV
In virtualization, single root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV) is a specification that allows the isolation of PCI Express resources for manageability and performance reasons.
Details
A single physical PCI Express bus can be shared in a virt ...
on hardware configurations that support this feature.
Management features for compute resources include
CPU pinning, defining
NUMA
Nuclear mitotic apparatus protein 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''NUMA1'' gene.
Interactions
Nuclear mitotic apparatus protein 1 has been shown to interact with PIM1, Band 4.1, GPSM2 and EPB41L1
Band 4.1-like protein 1 is a pro ...
topology, enabling
kernel same-page merging
In computing, kernel same-page merging (KSM), also known as kernel shared memory, memory merging, memory deduplication, and page deduplication is a kernel feature that makes it possible for a hypervisor system to share memory pages that have ide ...
,
memory over-provisioning,
HA VM reservation etc.
Virtual machine management enables selecting high availability priority,
live migration
Live migration refers to the process of moving a running virtual machine (VM) or application between different physical machines without disconnecting the client or application. Memory, storage, and network connectivity of the virtual machine are ...
, live
snapshots
Snapshot, snapshots or snap shot may refer to:
* Snapshot (photography), a photograph taken without preparation
Computing
* Snapshot (computer storage), the state of a system at a particular point in time
* Snapshot (file format) or SNP, a file ...
, cloning virtual machines from snapshots, creating virtual machine templates, using cloud-init for automated configuration during provisioning and deployment of virtual machines. Supported
guest operating system
Hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers as complete hardware platforms, certain logical abstractions of their componentry, or only the functionality required to run various operating systems. Virtualization hides the physic ...
s include
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
,
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
. Access to virtual machines can be achieved from webadmin portal using
SPICE
A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices a ...
,
VNC
Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is a graphical desktop-sharing system that uses the Remote Frame Buffer protocol (RFB) to remotely control another computer. It transmits the keyboard and mouse input from one computer to another, relaying the g ...
and
RDP protocols.
oVirt can be integrated with many open source projects, including
OpenStack
OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software plat ...
Glance and
Neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
for disk and network provisioning,
Foreman
__NOTOC__
A foreman, forewoman or foreperson is a supervisor, often in a manual trade or industry.
Foreman may specifically refer to:
*Construction foreman, the worker or tradesman who is in charge of a construction crew
* Jury foreman, a head j ...
/Katello for VM/node provisioning or pulling relevant errata information into webadmin portal and can be further integrated with
ManageIQ
ManageIQ is an open source cloud management platform. It was founded by Red Hat as a community project in 2014, and forms the basis for its CloudForms product. It allows centralized management of various virtualization, private cloud, public c ...
for a complete virtual infrastructure
lifecycle management.
Disaster recovery
Disaster recovery is the process of maintaining or reestablishing vital infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster, such as a storm or battle.It employs policies, tools, and procedures. Disaster recovery focuses on t ...
features include the ability to import any storage domain into different oVirt engine instances and
replication can be managed from oVirt with GlusterFS
geo-replication
Geo-replication systems are designed to provide improved availability and disaster tolerance by using geographically distributed data centers. This is intended to improve the response time for applications such as web portals. Geo-replication can b ...
feature, or by utilizing synchronous/asynchronous block level replication provided by storage hardware vendors. oVirt engine
backup
In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "back up", w ...
s can be automated and periodically transferred to a remote location.
oVirt supports
hyper-converged infrastructure
Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is a software-defined IT infrastructure that virtualizes all of the elements of conventional " hardware-defined" systems. HCI includes, at a minimum, virtualized computing (a hypervisor), software-defined ...
deployment scenarios.
Self-hosted engine and
Gluster
Gluster Inc. (formerly known as Z RESEARCH) was a software company that provided an open source platform for scale-out public and private cloud storage. The company was privately funded and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with an engin ...
-based storage domains allow centralized management of all resources that can be seamlessly expanded, simply by adding an appropriate number of nodes to the cluster, without having any
single points of failure. oVirt provides deep integration with Gluster, including Gluster specific performance improvements.
See also
*
Red Hat Virtualization
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) formerly known as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, is an x86 virtualization product developed by Red Hat, and is based on the KVM hypervisor. Red Hat Virtualization uses the SPICE protocol and VDSM (Virtual Deskt ...
(RHV)
*
Kernel-based Virtual Machine
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization module in the Linux kernel that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. It was merged into the mainline Linux kernel in version 2.6.20, which was released on February 5, 2007. KVM r ...
(KVM)
*
Comparison of platform virtualization software
Platform virtualization software, specifically emulators and hypervisors, are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often providing multiple virtual machines on one physical platform. The table below compares basic i ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:OVirt
Free software for cloud computing
Free software programmed in Java (programming language)
Red Hat software
Virtualization software for Linux