Virtualization

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is the first product to deliver commercial quality open source virtualization. Experience the power of virtualized computing on your server and client systems in one of three ways:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform includes fully integrated server and storage virtualization, coupled with high availability clustering capabilities based on Red Hat Global File System and Red Hat Cluster Suite products. This robust environment supports servers of any size and an unlimited number of virtualized guest environments.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux server subscriptions provide support for up to four virtualized guest environments.

Multi-OS desktops Using the Multi-OS option, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop client system can be enhanced to provide support for up to four virtualized guest environments.

• Explore virtualization Solutions.
• Read more about virtualization and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform. (pdf)

New Virtualization Features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1, released in November 2007, included a number of exciting new virtualization features, including:

• Live Migration of fully virtualized guests.
• Save/Restore of fully virtualized guests.
• Para-virtualized device drivers for use with fully virtualized Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4, and 5 guests. These provide significant performance gains.
• Full support of virtualization with Intel Itanium2 systems.
• The ability to run 32-bit para-virtualized guests on x86-64 systems running in 64-bit mode.
• Improved graphical management tools.

Benefits of virtualization

Virtualization technology delivers a quantum step in IT operational flexibility, speed of deployment, and application performance and availability. Virtualization allows IT managers to deliver more to their customers while gaining control of their costs. And new and exciting uses for virtualized environments are being developed every day.

With Red Hat virtualization, processing and data resources - servers and storage - are logically grouped into a single resource pool. Virtual servers and storage can then be dynamically allocated, in just a few seconds, as business demands dictate.

• Watch the video: Using systems More Efficiently
• Blog: Looking for Huge Performance Gains? Virtualize With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Red Hat virtualization architecture

Server consolidation

Consolidate the load of several lightly loaded servers onto one.

Hardware abstraction

Deploying an older operating system and applications on new hardware is easy.

Resource management and high availability

Move guest instances between systems. Give workloads to be to the most appropriate system. Have continued operation during maintenance periods. And a consistent virtualized server environment makes the deployment of disaster tolerant configurations simpler, practical, and trustworthy.

Application isolation

Encapsulate an application together into a single entity with its operating system, performance and configuration parameters, and security environment. Tightly control and manage your applications, immune from other changes in the IT environment.

• Watch the video: Ending Email Server downtime
• Watch the video: Moving Critical Apps to New Systems
• Watch the video: Using Servers More Efficiently

Types of virtualization

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides support for two types of virtualized guests, para-virtualized and fully virtualized.

• Para-virtualized guests offer the highest performance and do not require special processor capabilities. Para-virtualization is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (Update 5) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 guests.
• Full virtualization is available for a wider range of guests, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and 5, and also for third party operating system guests. Full virtualization requires Intel VT or AMD-V processors.

Intel and AMD x86/x86-64 host-guest virtualization support

Notes

• For full virtualization the processor must provide Intel VT or AMD-V capabilities.
• Host: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 only
• Para-virtualized guests: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (Update 5) and 5 only
• Full virtualized guests: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4, and 5; third party operating systems
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 and later provides para-virtualized drivers for use with fully virtualized Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and 5 guests. These provide a significant increase in performance over fully virtualized guests using standard drivers. Whenever possible, for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 and 5 guests, Red Hat recommends use of para-virtualization, which delivers the highest available performance.