KVM runs virtualized guests with its own kernel, which is very important to me.
KVM runs virtualized guests with its own kernel, which is very important to me.
I mainly use it for customer projects, as KVM allows running virtualized environments for free in a very efficient way. Furthermore, it is an open source solution so modifying the code is possible. One might think that this is never necessary for most projects; however, when a specific customer requested an enhancement of the functionality, I was able to provide that. The customer was very impressed that KVM is such a professional solution although it is free.
Over the years, many customers were happy that they were able to choose between VMware, Xen and another alternative - KVM.
Setting KVM up and running it with dozens of parameters can be annoying. However, there is a control interface called Virsh (and also a GUI called virt-manager) which allows running KVM guests with a simple config file.
I have been using KVM since 2010, so for fives years in total.
So far, no issues.
When running I/O intensive tasks, or having a very high amount of network packages which need to reach the guest(s). However, all issues were under control after tuning the config of the KVM guests.
No issues yet.
There is no customer service, only the community. It is a free product, based on open source software. However, one can use RHEV (the enterprise virtualization product from Red Hat), then you will be able to contact the Red Hat support.
I used Xen in the past and switched because the customers requested a solution which allows running a guest with its own Kernel. This is also possible with Xen, but not a common use case, though.
The initial setup, when done manually, is complex because you need to be an experienced Linux user or admin, especially as the networking part can be challenging.
I always deploy it on my own.
It is free! Use it and if you need enterprise support, make sure to use RHEV, the virtualization product from Red Hat.
No, because in the open source world, there are not many hypervisors which have the same feature set as KVM.
Make sure to gain a lot of knowledge about virtualization and the way KVM works. Then implement it with libvirt and virt-manager because this makes running KVM guests a lot easier.