Has anyone given oVirt a try? - oVirt is an Open-Source Distributed Virtualization Solution

Ympker

Has anyone tried this?

Homepage: https://www.ovirt.org/

Github: Click

Latest Patch released March 19th 2020 (seems to be still actively maintained; 23 contributors):
https://www.ovirt.org/release/4.3.9/

"Fairly new" (2019) "full demo, admin user" video:

InceptionHosting

I did a long time ago, I appreciate my experiences 7 ish years ago likely do not reflect the product today but it was trash back then, incredibly limited option set and not at all usable for the hosting world.

Ympker

@AnthonySmith said:
I did a long time ago, I appreciate my experiences 7 ish years ago likely do not reflect the product today but it was trash back then, incredibly limited option set and not at all usable for the hosting world.

Ah, sounds too bad Maybe it has grown a bit but idk. Was just wondering if there's some light in between Proxmox, SolusIO and Virtualizor haha

Edit: Seems to be used (maybe more frequently) now?

Not to say Universities or Airports are generally speaking utilizing the best solutions but it is still something, eh? Although often enough Universities are using Open Source solutions (for better or worse; had to experience this myself at my Uni).

FlamingSpaceJunk

oVirt is the upstream of RHEV, so it's probably fine. It is more targeted at internal IT virt servers with VMware vSphere being a more natural competitor.

I play with it from time to time. It takes more work to setup then I usually want todo, and has more features then I usually need. virsh and virt-install with scripts is what I usually end up using.

FlamingSpaceJunk

There is Kimchi, the oVirt UI, which can be run as a standalone application.

beagle

@FlamingSpaceJunk said:
There is Kimchi, the oVirt UI, which can be run as a standalone application.

That's what I use at my home server, but it's essentially a WebUI for Libvirt. It's very limited but it's useful for the basics like provisioning a VM, stop, start, clone, etc.

It has been through some growing pains since the project lost IBM sponsorship. Most developers were from IBM. The only current developer is a former IBM employee who has changed jobs and do what she can on her spare time.

If you are looking for a full enterprise virtualization solution you can have a look at XCP-ng. It's a great solution for a dedicated virtualization server if you use XenOrchestra as a WebUI to manage it.

Ympker

@beagle said:

@FlamingSpaceJunk said:
There is Kimchi, the oVirt UI, which can be run as a standalone application.

That's what I use at my home server, but it's essentially a WebUI for Libvirt. It's very limited but it's useful for the basics like provisioning a VM, stop, start, clone, etc.

It has been through some growing pains since the project lost IBM sponsorship. Most developers were from IBM. The only current developer is a former IBM employee who has changed jobs and do what she can on her spare time.

If you are looking for a full enterprise virtualization solution you can have a look at XCP-ng. It's a great solution for a dedicated virtualization server if you use XenOrchestra as a WebUI to manage it.

I have read about XCP-ng as wwll, although it's limited to Xen, right? Looks much more clean/stable though than oVirt

beagle

@Ympker said: I have read about XCP-ng as wwll, although it's limited to Xen, right? Looks much more clean/stable though than oVirt

Yes, it's Xen, so I would say it's a better fit if you are looking for an enterprise solution like VMware than a hosting solution (i.e. Solus, Virtualizor, etc)

If you are interested Tom Lawrence has some nice videos/tutorials about using XCP-ng as a virtualisation lab:

@FlamingSpaceJunk said: It takes more work to setup then I usually want todo

I have a similar experience. Same with OpenNebula. It seems a great platform. Very flexible, but it takes some times to setup and customise to fit your needs.

Ympker

@beagle said:

@Ympker said: I have read about XCP-ng as wwll, although it's limited to Xen, right? Looks much more clean/stable though than oVirt

Yes, it's Xen, so I would say it's a better fit if you are looking for an enterprise solution like VMware than a hosting solution (i.e. Solus, Virtualizor, etc)

If you are interested Tom Lawrence has some nice videos/tutorials about using XCP-ng as a virtualisation lab:

@FlamingSpaceJunk said: It takes more work to setup then I usually want todo

I have a similar experience. Same with OpenNebula. It seems a great platform. Very flexible, but it takes some times to setup and customise to fit your needs.

Cool, thanks mate! Looks really cool

InceptionHosting

If I was looking for internal infrastructure and stable i would likely still use Xen to be honest, the only disadvantage you get with xen is less density.

Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

Ympker

@AnthonySmith said:
If I was looking for internal infrastructure and stable i would likely still use Xen to be honest, the only disadvantage you get with xen is less density.

Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

Just read your signature about support tickets. Has it really become that bad?

InceptionHosting

@Ympker said:

@AnthonySmith said:
If I was looking for internal infrastructure and stable i would likely still use Xen to be honest, the only disadvantage you get with xen is less density.

Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

Just read your signature about support tickets. Has it really become that bad?

it really has, after I did that people just started writing on my wall here instead.

Ympker

@AnthonySmith said:

@Ympker said:

@AnthonySmith said:
If I was looking for internal infrastructure and stable i would likely still use Xen to be honest, the only disadvantage you get with xen is less density.

Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

Just read your signature about support tickets. Has it really become that bad?

it really has, after I did that people just started writing on my wall here instead.

That sucks lol. Talk about fun times.

beagle

@AnthonySmith said:
If I was looking for internal infrastructure and stable i would likely still use Xen to be honest, the only disadvantage you get with xen is less density.

Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

Have a look at their forum. The developers are very active and very receptive to feature requests. Very nice community.

FlamingSpaceJunk

@AnthonySmith said:
Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

It looks like it was added in Xen 3.3 and XenServer 5.6.
https://xenproject.org/2008/08/27/xen-33-feature-memory-overcommit/
https://speakvirtual.com/2011/02/28/memory-overcommitment-in-xenserver-and-esx/

InceptionHosting

@FlamingSpaceJunk said:

@AnthonySmith said:
Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

It looks like it was added in Xen 3.3 and XenServer 5.6.
https://xenproject.org/2008/08/27/xen-33-feature-memory-overcommit/
https://speakvirtual.com/2011/02/28/memory-overcommitment-in-xenserver-and-esx/

That's just balloon drivers in paravirualized guests its not quite the same.

FlamingSpaceJunk

@AnthonySmith said:

@FlamingSpaceJunk said:

@AnthonySmith said:
Back when I kept a keen eye on Xen there was talk of memory over provisioning coming to Xen which is essential for good density, I have no idea if that ever actually happened though.

It looks like it was added in Xen 3.3 and XenServer 5.6.
https://xenproject.org/2008/08/27/xen-33-feature-memory-overcommit/
https://speakvirtual.com/2011/02/28/memory-overcommitment-in-xenserver-and-esx/

That's just balloon drivers in paravirualized guests its not quite the same.

Citrix is mudding the waters about all of this by stating dynamic memory control == dynamic memory optimization == memory overcommit == memory ballooning. :eyeroll:

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xencenter/7-1/dmc-about.html