[NTLUG:Discuss] RHEV-H (the standalone hypervisor of RHEV)

[David Simmons]

Hi Chris,

I passed your thoughts onto a RedHat employee - thought maybe some of their
response might be entertaining / enlightening?

RHEV = KVM (RHEV-H, little embedded Linux host OS) + management
RHEL (w/Xen and KVM) is just the OS + Hypervisor atop

Think of VMware ESX Server/vSphere v. VMware Workstation/Server

RHEV is KVM, Red Hat owns it, works on the upstream Linux kernel.
Heck, Red Hat did most of the leg work for Xen in the upstream Linux kernel.

People keep forgetting that Red Hat does so much upstream, people _follow_
Red Hat's efforts, and built theirs atop of Red Hat's.

RHEV is targetted at VMware ESX Server/vSphere at a much lower price.
RHEL (w/Xen and KVM) are targetted at people who want their HV in the Linux
OS.

Red Hat's approach is 2-form.  Red Hat is _not_ trying to kill KVM.

- Dave

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Chris Cox <cjcox at acm.org> wrote:

> I messed up a bit on the RHEL pricing if you want
> the equivalent to SLES the cost for 12x5 is $1499.
> The $799 is for the limited RHEL product.
>
> Sorry about that...
>
> On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 13:17 -0500, Chris Cox wrote:
> > On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 04:16 -0500, Ralph Green wrote:
> > > Howdy,
> > >   I do most of my virtualization with VirtualBox.  I am still just
> > > playing with KVM.  KVM needs hardware virtualization support and none
> of
> > > my virtualization machines have that.  So, I know this question may
> > > sound kind of uninformed.  Is RedHat forced to do some of this?  KVM is
> >
> > Red Hat's RHEV depends on hardware(cpu) virtualization instruction
> > support.  RHEV is an OLDER revision of contemporary KVM which uses
> > a proprietary mgmt protocol.
> >
> > > one of the newest virtualization platforms and I don't know if it is
> > > mature enough to use in production.  I am not saying it isn't, but just
> > > that I don't ever see anyone use it except for people working on some
> > > neat new programs in the virtualization area.  VMWare, XEN, and
> > > VirtualBox are used quite a bit in production.  Does any distro package
> >
> > My vote is that RHEV is undeployable right now.  But... if you don't
> > mind the whole hypervisor tanking whenever you sneeze... I guess it's
> > interesting. :-)
> >
> > IMHO, at LEAST two iterations from being usable (at least).  And I'm
> > not including the minor steps taken later this year.
> >
> > It's simply NOT a Red Hat product.  I'll explain in a bit what I
> > "think" happened.
> >
> > > KVM in a way that it is more open and useful that RedHat is doing?
>  Suse
> > > seems to push XEN, so I'd give RedHat some credit for trying to work
> >
> > Novell has the Alacrity-VM work which is designed to replace the
> > virtio with a better vbus based system inside of KVM.  So no.... Novell
> > isn't banking on XEN forever and since GKH is still there, he knows
> > about the evils of Xen inside of the kernel.  (not saying GKH is
> > involved KVM/Alactrity-VM work... but certainly there is a Novell
> > association).  To make this a bit more confusing, the Novell engineer
> > and kernel dev behind this project is Greg Haskins (another Greg).
> >
> > http://developer.novell.com/wiki/index.php/AlacrityVM
> >
> > With that said, something that works is better than something
> > that doesn't work.  Thus it's still a Xen world (enterprise Linux
> > wise).
> >
> > > with the more open technology.  I thought RedHat was the one doing more
> > > work on libvirt, so it seems they should get credit there, too.
> >
> > While true, that is NOT RHEV, at least not today.  And Red Hat may
> > be using their KVM work (KVM was created by Qumranet) to confuse
> > the current state of affairs with the existing RHEV product.
> >
> >
> > >   Please educate me, since I am looking for good information in this
> > > area.  And, in a related note, I'll add that the thing I am looking for
> > > the most is a good physical to virtual tool.  I have been experimenting
> > > with writing part of this myself, since I have not found anything
> > > useful.  But, I still think someone out there must have already
> > > addressed this problem.
> >
> > RHEV == old KVM
> >
> > Best way to look at that.  So if you believe somebody is working on
> > this or that KVM wise... I know for sure it is NOT to be found in RHEV.
> >
> > Qumranet's design was to HIDE the kernel.  Qumranet was likely using a
> > home grown kernel. Then Red Hat simply
> > replaced it with theirs to put their fingerprints on the
> > product line.  But since it was simply jammed in, there is no
> > normal Red Hat support/subscription/yum/etc mechanism for RHEV.
> > The update mechanism is by iso's released periodically (so NO
> > immediate update/patch solutions for any serious/critical problems).
> >
> > And Red Hat charges you a SUBSCRIPTION fee ($499) per seat for RHEV.
> > (interesting since Red Hat can't really provide a typical online
> > update mechanism for the product... but people will pay them anyway).
> > Even if you choose to use RHEL, you still have to pay an extra
> > $499 and then RHEV's install iso will back rev level your good
> > KVM stuff to the crummy version that Qumranet developed on.  Personally,
> > the install is cloudy on doing this... Red Hat really wants you to
> > install the non-Red Hatish RHEV-H iso on raw hardware.
> >
> > >>begin aside<<
> > Just for completeness, whether you use Xen or KVM using Novell's
> > SLES, you do NOT have to pay a separate subscription fee..
> > virtualization is just another part of the SLES functionality...
> >
> > With that said, RHEV is just $499 for a 12x5 support option
> > and a full SLES is $799 for 12x5.... but of course that's also
> > a full SLES, virtualized or not... so YMMV on which is a better
> > value.
> >
> > A 12x5 RHEL costs $799 now.  AND... in all fairness that comes
> > with Xen and KVM (just not the RHEV KVM).... :-)  However, Red
> > Hat does limit their Xen (and possible KVM) as well to a limited
> > number of VM's etc.  Not sure if Red Hat will maintain the
> > stupid limits in RHEL 6, hopefully not.
> > >><<
> >
> > I know this is VERY critical.  RHEV stinks.  I don't think anyone
> > could say differently.
> >
> > What's really bad is how Red Hat used their current work on KVM
> > to confuse matters to get the industry to hedge a bit and
> > essentially spread misinformation about RHEV based on the
> > marketing message that Red Hat created.  Of course, it's pretty
> > typical of many companies out there... just don't think of
> > Red Hat as some kind of knight in shining armor here...
> >
> > Next version in beta is more of the same... nothing improved.
> > Again, I think AT LEAST two more iterations... and even then,
> > while the Qumranet team is still in charge, it's just moving
> > a simple/primitive mgmt interface away from .Net and embedding
> > it into Java + JBOSS... which is still a pain IMHO.
> >
> > You could sort of tell that the Red Hat (Qumranet) team wanted
> > to take the Mono route... but since Red Hat has a unmovable opinion
> > on that (ultimately NOT because of M$ but more because of NiH, and not
> > acquirable), that
> > solution was dropped.... which means a lot of work for the Qumranet
> > folks in porting their code base from an easy to use framework to
> > the mess that is J2EE.
> >
> > I suppose it's possible that Red Hat will wake up and NOT continue
> > the route of growth through acquisition and learn how to properly
> > assimilate technology into their culture rather than having a
> > bunch of cancer cells here and there.
> >
> > It's possible that Red Hat was scared since the only enterprise
> > virtualization product line was coming out of Novell... and so they
> > did a quick tech purchase and pushed things out to confuse
> > the marketplace a bit while they play catch up.  If you're using
> > a non-VMware, non-Citrix, non-Microsoft enterprise level hypervisor
> > today, chances are you are using Novell's SLES Xen.
> >
> > Red Hat is a confusing company.... pretty much like any big
> > company out there.  They have THREE virtualization lines with one
> > being phased out.  Red Hat adopted Xen (which they said SUCKED
> > even though they did a large amount of the work) when Novell
> > included it and built a platform for virtualization on top of
> > their SLES enterprise product... Red Hat had nothing and their
> > attempts at bad mouthing the Novell decision failed... so Red Hat
> > went Xen.  Red Hat likes KVM and aquires Qumarnet and decides
> > that KVM will be the focus of the NEXT version of RHEL, thus
> > dropping Xen.  Red Hat also pushes out a standalone product
> > line called RHEV which is NOT like the KVM included in RHEL.
> >
> > So... RHEL 6 will include KVM and even SPICE components (though
> > SPICE is ONLY supported via RHEV and NOT in RHEL).  So you can
> > virtualize using libvirt and friends using RHEL, or you can use
> > the vdmsp proprietary mgmt tool of RHEV-M + RHEV-H.
> >
> > Clear??
> >
> > Let's just say Red Hat is not being very clear at all right now. The
> > confusion is creating internal competition... two product lines
> > potentially competing against each other virtualization wise.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
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>



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