OVirt
| Company type | Open-source software project |
|---|---|
| Industry | Virtualization management software |
| Founder | Red Hat |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Virtualization management solution |
| Parent | Red Hat |
| Website | www |
oVirt is an open-source virtualization management solution initially created by Red Hat as a community-driven initiative and serves as the foundation for Red Hat Virtualization. It facilitates the centralized administration of virtual machines alongside compute, storage, and networking assets via a user-friendly web interface accessible across different platforms. The platform supports KVM hypervisors on x86-64, PowerPC64, and s390x architectures, with forthcoming support planned for ARM processors.
Architecture
The architecture of oVirt is composed of two primary elements: the oVirt engine and the oVirt node.
The backend of the oVirt engine is built using Java and operates on the WildFly application server. Its frontend is developed with the GWT, accessible through both an administrative web portal and a user portal that allows role-based access control. User authentication can be managed locally or via integration with directory services such as LDAP and AD. All configuration and operational data reside in a PostgreSQL database, with optional data warehousing and reporting capabilities enabled through additional database instances during installation. A flexible REST API is provided to extend and customize engine functionalities.
An oVirt node refers to a physical server running operating systems like RHEL, CentOS, Scientific Linux, or experimentally, Debian, equipped with KVM virtualization. This node is managed by the VDSM (Virtual Desktop and Server Manager) daemon, which is implemented in Python. Commands for managing resources are issued from the engine backend to VDSM, which oversees compute, storage, networking, and virtual machine operations on the node while supplying status updates. Clustering multiple nodes through the oVirt engine portal enhances system resilience and availability.
Deployment options for the oVirt engine include installation on a dedicated physical server or hosting within a virtual machine cluster (known as a self-hosted engine), achievable either manually or through a virtual appliance.
oVirt leverages several technologies such as libvirt, Gluster, PatternFly, and Ansible, providing scalable virtualization management tailored for enterprise-scale environments.
Features
Within oVirt, virtualized datacenters are structured into storage domains, network configurations, and clusters made up of one or more oVirt nodes. The platform ensures Data integrity through fencing mechanisms that utilize agents interfacing with resources like baseboard management controllers or backup power supplies (UPS).
Storage organization occurs within designated storage domains, which may be either local or shared across nodes. The system supports various storage technologies and protocols including:
- NFS
- iSCSI
- Fibre Channel
- Filesystems compliant with the POSIX standard
- GlusterFS
Network administration allows configuration of multiple bridged VLANs connected to node interfaces. Administrators can manage bonded network interfaces (bonding), IP addressing schemes, subnet masks, gateway settings, and enable features like SR-IOV on supported hardware—all via the webadmin interface.
Management of compute resources encompasses capabilities such as CPU affinity (pinning), defining Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) layouts, activating kernel same-page merging, memory overcommitment strategies, and reserving virtual machines for high availability (HA) scenarios.
Virtual machine administration includes assigning HA priority levels, performing live migrations, capturing live snapshots, cloning from snapshots, creating VM templates, and automating provisioning using cloud-init. Supported guest operating systems range across Linux, various versions of Microsoft Windows, and FreeBSD. Access to VMs is provided through SPICE, VNC, and RDP directly from the webadmin portal.
Integration with other open source projects enhances oVirt’s capabilities: it works with Glance and Neutron for disk image and network resource provisioning; utilizes Foreman/Katello for provisioning VMs/nodes and managing errata; and pairs with ManageIQ to deliver comprehensive lifecycle management of virtual infrastructure.
Disaster recovery features include importing storage domains into separate oVirt engine instances. Replication options are available through GlusterFS geo-replication or block-level synchronous/asynchronous replication provided by storage vendors. Backup procedures for the oVirt engine can be automated with remote transfer capabilities.
oVirt supports deployments based on hyper-converged infrastructure principles. By combining self-hosted engines with Gluster-backed storage domains, it enables centralized resource control that scales horizontally by adding additional nodes without introducing single points of failure. The platform offers extensive integration with GlusterFS including performance optimizations tailored specifically to Gluster storage environments.
See also
- OpenShift along with its forerunner, Red Hat Virtualization (RHV)
- Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
- Comparison of platform virtualization software