KVM Hypervisor

Amazon’s was based on Xen for many years and also have KVM as Hypervisor. Google’s is based on KVM.

Did we ever think this before going for any of provider ?

Xen is being used for its ability to run Windows applications and is more suitable to the needs of this environment. This Xen-based zone specializes in storage tiering.

This second zone is KVM-based. KVM is generally preferred for Linux-based VMs, and here the cloud provider is also offering different tiers of storage. So, by offering Xen and KVM zones, the provider offers multiple choices for deployment, each with a range of storage options.

Hypervisor (KVM):

1) It is an inbuilt virtualization software available in Linux (Have to select it when installing OS Or can be done whenever you require) and it's a full virtualization solution for Linux.

2) Virtualization (KVM) supports different guest operating system images including Linux Kernel, Windows, BSD and Solaris. It also allocates separate virtual computing resources for each virtual machine such as the processor, storage, memory, etc.

3) On the other hand, a full virtualization solution for Linux containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). Using KVM virtualization, one can have Linux and Windows virtual machines running side by side on the same hardware.

4) Each virtual machine has a private virtualized hardware, like own kernel, a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc. Since it has its own virtualized hardware, the virtual server will act completely on its own.Each virtual machine has a private virtualized hardware, like own kernel, a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc. Since it has its own virtualized hardware, the virtual server will act completely on its own.

Features of KVM Virtualization

1) Over-committing : Which means allocating more virtualized CPUs or memory than the available resources on the system.

2) Thin provisioning : This allows the allocation of flexible storage and optimizes the available space for every guest virtual machine.

3) Disk I/O throttling : Provides the ability to set a limit on disk I/O requests sent from virtual machines to the host machine.

4) Virtual CPU hot add capability : It increases the capacity of processing power on running virtual machines with no down time.

Advantages with KVM Virtualization

1) Super Low Cost

2) Can interact directly with the Kernal.

3) Excellent Security : Since the base of KVM is made up of Linux, it uses the SE Linux advanced security system.

4) Available for Anybody to Use : The open environment means anybody can use it and customize the system to fit specific requirements.

5) Most of the open source cloud automation software's use KVM as a default hyperviser.

6) Another advantage with KVM is that all applications should work exactly like in a dedicated server.

7) Uses its own kernel. Even the flexibility of migrating from virtual machine to dedicated server.

Will let you explore the disadvantage if any !!