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Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

Score2.1 out of 10

18 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)?

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 18 ratings of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)'s features
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Top Performing Features

  • Live virtual machine backup

    Ability to backup vms without interrupting service

    Category average: 8

  • Hypervisor-level security

    Hypervisor-level security including antivirus and anti-malware

    Category average: 8.4

  • Virtual machine automated provisioning

    Automation of virtual machine provisioning through use of vm templates

    Category average: 7.8

Areas for Improvement

  • Management console

    Management console for central administration of vm environment

    Category average: 8

  • Live virtual machine migration

    Downtime minimization by migrating live vms between hosts and across clusters

    Category average: 8

Reviews

What users are saying about Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM).
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Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

KVM is the underlying technology for all of the virtualization that we run. We wanted to ensure that we weren't tied into a specific vendor and could easily migrate if one started to misbehave. By using KVM based solutions, we can easily shift to new solutions as things improve, set up low cost lab/testing environments, and provide solid virtualization environments for our clients.

Pros

  • Virtualization
  • Snapshotting
  • Management

Cons

  • Graphical performance is lacking
  • Sometimes documentation isn't as strong as we would like.

Return on Investment

  • Deploy low/no cost software solutions
  • Become hardware agnostic
  • Free ourselves of vendor lock-in

Usability

Alternatives Considered

VMware ESXi and XenServer

Other Software Used

TrueNAS, Fedora Linux, Debian OS, KeePassXC

KVM - Open-Source virtualisation solution

Incentivized
Robert Munteanu
Software Engineer in Engineering at LMN (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use virtualisation to segregate workloads and to reduce blast radius of certain classes of problems. Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is an open-source, flexible, and performant solution to our needs. It runs natively via virt-manager on SUSE-based products, which we use prefer for production usage.

Pros

  • high-performance virtualisation

Cons

  • no major problems with kvm

Return on Investment

  • KVM just works and gets out of the way
  • KVM is working great with other open-source technologies like QEMU and libvirt

Alternatives Considered

Oracle VM VirtualBox

Other Software Used

openSUSE Leap, openSUSE Open Build Service (OBS), openSUSE Tumbleweed

The great tool contemporary virtual world.

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Linux KVM is a powerful and free (in the case of using Ubuntu for example) virtualization tool. In our organization KVM plays a significant role in DevNet related implementations (especially by using in pair of network appliances + KVM with a variety of firewall/router/VPN box images). AT&T which is one of our carriers and the most well-known SP is also using KVM in its FlexWare environment (Juniper NFX hardware + KVM + vEX/vSRX images).

Pros

  • Lightweight built-in implementation for all *nix based OS.
  • Easy to deploy and manage VMs.
  • Freeware (is you are using a free OS).

Cons

  • Monitoring features (unclear SNMP MIB DB, do not support by the monitoring systems, like Solarwinds and etc.)

Return on Investment

  • Money saving.

Alternatives Considered

VMware ESXi

Other Software Used

VMware ESXi

Linux KVM is a mature production ready solution

Incentivized
Verified User
C-Level Executive in Corporate (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Virtualization was a turning point in technology because of its flexibility and reliability. Before virtualization, we had to deal with all the issues related to bare metal servers. Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine became the industry de-facto for virtualization, especially for *nix related guess operating systems. It is very stable and reliable for production systems. We use virtualized servers for more than a decade on Kernel-based Virtual Machine technology with amazing results.

Pros

  • Segregation of guess systems.
  • Fair allocation of resources.
  • Hardware virtualization.

Cons

  • Handling of hardware failures.
  • Hot migration of systems between KVM hosts.

Return on Investment

  • Fast provisioning of new servers.
  • Huge drop of the cost of servers compared to bare metal.
  • Easy upgrades of resources, sometimes now even requiring a server restart.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle VM VirtualBox

Great Linux-integrated virtualization foundation

Incentivized
Valentin HöbelView profile
Senior Consultant IT Infrastructure in Human Resources at open *i GmbH (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • KVM is really good at providing fast and reliable virtualization for Linux guests
  • Since KVM is a kernel module, every VM is a Linux process which can be managed by Linux system tools
  • KVM integrates very well with the management framework libvirt, which is why KVM can be integrated in automation tools as well

Cons

  • KVM itself doesn't ship with a management interface
  • KVM itself is a bit complicated to handle
  • KVM needs Qemu to virtualize Windows guests

Return on Investment

  • KVM normally enables customers to fullfill their business goals very fast and it is free, so there is a very small time window from implementation to "investment is returned"
  • If IT staff doesn't have hardcore Linux experience, they will need proper learning time until they'll be able to handle KVM

Alternatives Considered

Xen, Oracle VM VirtualBox, VMware ESXi and VMware Player

Other Software Used

Red Hat Ceph Storage, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, Docker