KVM Hosting Secret Revealed
KVM and KVM Hosting Introduction
There're actually two explanation to the phrase KVM. One stands for the server managing technology over internet — Keyboard, Video, Mouse. That means to control multiple machines/device via a single box. The other explanation is about server virtualization – Kernel-based Virtual Machine. No matter if it's about server management or virtualization technology, both of them are playing an important role in today's IT industry. In this article we're going to talk about the server virtualization by KVM and compare it's advantages over other technologies. Also, I would like to introduce several popular names for KVM hosting service.
KVM Hosting Server Advantages
The KVM is an open source software which is included in Linux Kernel 2.6.20 and later versions. That means if we want to virtulize our hosting server we don't have to use a third party software but just load this module directly from setup. Using KVM, we can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc. To learn all the features, I highly recommend you check out this page http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/KVM_Features
Generally speaking, all features from the main virtualization solutions are included in KVM.
KVM vs XEN vs OpenVZ
When comes to Server Virtualization Technologies, XEN is probably one of the most famous names. XEN is also an open sourced software and proabably the mostly used one in VPS hosting solution, it's approved to be stable and reliable on production server. Unlike XEN, the KVM is actually part of linux itself and only works with unmodified operation systems on x86 CPU. But such limitation doesn't exist on XEN. At the meanwhile, XEN is supported by lots of third party groups and it's an matured virtualization technology. In some degrees, KVM is light weight XEN but with less features.
How about OpenVZ? OpenVZ is another popular open source virtualization software. The difference comparing to other similar softwares is OpenVZ will virtualize the system OS directly instead of loading os for each VPS instance separately. The OpenVZ can be easily edited on production server for extra server creation. That means OpenVZ based hosting server can be oversold more easily. Because of this, the OpenVZ vps price is normally lower than others.
KVM vs XEN vs OpenVZ, which should I choose? From above explanation we should have found XEN is definitely the best choice for quality live service purpose. Unless you want a live VPS for learning purpose only, we highly recommend XEN solutions.
Best KVM hosting service?
Because KVM is some part new comparing to other virtual server solutions like XEN, it's still on the way of gaining more popularity. Not too many hosting companies are offering this service, but there's positive growth of KVM and more and more third party support are joining up. The Redhat already switched their focus from XEN to KVM which is a positive signal to this product. In case you want to check who's offering KVM hosting at the moment, vservercenter.com and openhosting.com are worthy of checking out. Personally, I don't have any experience with KVM on production server. But because of it's fast growing, it's necessary to check out if you're running an IT service.