KVM Management: Deployment Options

Oracle Linux offers the following KVM deployment management options:

Standalone KVM Hypervisor

This KVM option provides a set of modules that enable you to use the Oracle Linux kernel as a hypervisor. KVM can be used on both x86_64 and aarch64 processor architectures and is available on Oracle Linux 7, Oracle Linux 8, and Oracle Linux 9 systems using either Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK) or Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK).

By default, KVM is built into the kernel. KVM features are actively developed and might vary depending on platform and kernel release. Information on how to use the KVM hypervisor option is described in this guide.

Oracle UEK users have the options of using either the default kernel version or an Oracle kernel version for KVM deployment. Finally, UEK users can choose to switch between the KVM stacks as needed. For more details about the virtualization packages available for each Linux release, see KVM Repositories and Channels: Yum and ULN. For details about switching between KVM stacks, see Switch KVM Stacks.

Note:

For UEK users, also see the kernel version release notes to obtain more information about the KVM features and any known issues that might apply. For these type of details, see the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel documentation.

Note:

As an alternative to using the command-line interface to manage KVM instances on a host, the Cockpit web console provides a graphical interface to interact with KVM and libvirtd. For more details about setting up VMs on a system using the Cockpit web console interface, see Oracle Linux: Using the Cockpit Web Console.

Managed KVM Server Virtualization

This KVM option is for enterprise or clustered KVM deployment environments on Oracle Linux. For these KVM environments, consider using Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager which is a server virtualization management platform.

Using Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager's administration or virtual machine (VM) portals, you can configure, monitor, and manage an Oracle Linux KVM environment, including hosts, VMs, storage, networks, and users. Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager also provides a REST API for managing Oracle Linux KVM infrastructure, enabling you to integrate Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager with other management systems or to automate repetitive tasks with scripts.

For more details on how to use Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager, see the Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager Documentation at https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualization/oracle-linux-virtualization-manager/.