What is OpenShift Virtualization?
New development is shifting to containers, and increasingly serverless as well, but organizations also have a huge investment in applications that run as virtual machines, many of which provide vital services to new and existing containerized applications. OpenShift Virtualization (formerly container-native virtualization) lets developers bring virtual machines (VMs) into containerized workflows by running a virtual machine within a container where they can develop, manage, and deploy virtual machines side-by-side with containers and serverless all in one platform. A feature of OpenShift Container Platform, OpenShift Virtualization combines two technologies into a single management platform so organizations take advantage of the simplicity and speed of containers and Kubernetes while still benefiting from the applications and services that have been architected for virtual machines.
OpenShift Virtualization acknowledges that many organizations are using both container and virtual machine technologies today and delivers an efficient process to manage both in one centralized platform.
OpenShift Virtualization: What's new with virtualization from Red Hat
Global investment bank leverages OpenShift to manage its global footprint of virtual machines
Learn more: OpenShift 4.3 - Creating virtual machines on Kubernetes with OpenShift’s CNV
What is KubeVirt?
KubeVirt is the open source project that makes it possible to run virtual machines in a Kubernetes-managed container platform. KubeVirt delivers container-native virtualization by leveraging KVM, the Linux Kernel hypervisor, within a Kubernetes container. KubeVirt provides services like those associated with traditional virtualization platforms, providing the best of both mature virtualization management technology and Kubernetes container orchestration.
Started by Red Hat, KubeVirt is now a CNCF Sandbox project. Red Hat is one of the leading contributors to the Kubernetes ecosystem, and builder of key features such as StatefulSets, role-based access control (RBAC), and Network Policy, as well as critical components of Kubernetes, including etcd (the cornerstone of Kubernetes that maintains cluster configuration).
Making virtualization Kubernetes-native
Learn more:
OpenShift Virtualization: Containers, KVM, and your VMs
Getting started with KubeVirt containers and virtual machines together
Deploy a virtual machine with KubeVirt
How does virtualization work with Red Hat OpenShift?
OpenShift Virtualization is an operator that enables developers to create and add virtualized applications to their projects from OperatorHub in the same way they would for a containerized application. The resulting virtual machines will run in parallel on the same Red Hat OpenShift nodes as traditional application containers.
OpenShift Virtualization adds new objects to your OpenShift Container Platform cluster via Kubernetes custom resources to enable virtualization tasks. These tasks include:
- Creating and managing Linux and Windows virtual machines.
- Connecting to virtual machines through UI and CLI tools.
- Importing and cloning existing virtual machines, including VMware and Red Hat Virtualization virtual machines.
- Managing network interface controllers and storage disks attached to virtual machines.
- Live migrating virtual machines between nodes.
Install container-native virtualization
Get started: Deploy and use OpenShift Virtualization
Learn how a global investment bank uses OpenShift Virtualization to manage their global footprint
What are the benefits of OpenShift Virtualization?
OpenShift Virtualization enables businesses to deliver a platform to:
- Jump-start your modernization strategy: OpenShift Virtualization lets you bring your virtual machine apps and services directly to Kubernetes today. Add VMs to container-based applications, and containerize those VMs over time. In the meantime, you gain complete control of all components of your application, VMs, containers, and serverless, all on a single platform.
- Deliver one modern platform - the right way: The advantages of cloud-native and containers for developing and deploying applications are clear. Red Hat OpenShift is a leading enterprise Kubernetes container platform, with full-stack automated operations to manage hybrid cloud and multi cloud deployments, optimized for developer productivity and frictionless innovation.
- Work in the open: Work with leading Kubernetes innovators. Red Hat is a community leader and builder in Kubernetes and container projects, building on our open source expertise to drive significant innovation in upstream projects.
OpenShift Virtualization is ideal for teams that are shifting to cloud-native application development and have a large investment in conventional virtual machine technology.
Get started
Install OpenShift Virtualization
Red Hat Summit 2020: OpenShift Virtualization - A simplified, converged management platform for virtual machines and containers
Get started: deploying and using OpenShift Virtualization