KVM Virtualization Cookbook

Key Features

• Build, manage and scale virtual machines with practical step-by-step examples
• Leverage the libvirt user-space tools and libraries to manage the life-cycle of KVM instances
• Deploy and scale applications inside KVM virtual machines with OpenStack

Book Description

Virtualization technologies such as KVM allow for better control over the available server resources, by deploying multiple virtual instances on the same physical host, or clusters of compute resources. With KVM it is possible to run various workloads in isolation with the hypervisor layer providing better tenant isolation and higher degree of security.

This book will provide a deep dive into deploying KVM virtual machines using qemu and libvirt and will demonstrate practical examples on how to run, scale, monitor, migrate and backup such instances. You will also discover real production ready recipes on deploying KVM instances with OpenStack and how to programatically manage the life cycle of KVM virtual machines using Python. You will learn numerous tips and techniques which will help you deploy & plan the KVM infrastructure. Next, you will be introduced to the working of libvirt libraries and the iPython development environment.

Finally, you will be able to tune your Linux kernel for high throughput and better performance. By the end of this book, you will gain all the knowledge needed to be an expert in working with the KVM virtualization infrastructure.

What you will learn

• Deploy different workloads in isolation with KVM virtualization and better utilize the available compute resources
• Explore the benefits of running applications with KVM and learn to prevent the "bad-neighbor" effect
• Leveraging various networking technologies in the context of virtualization with Open vSwitch and the Linux bridge.
• Create KVM instances using Python and inspect running KVM instances
• Understand Kernel Tuning for enhanced KVM performance and better memory utilization

About the Author

Konstantin Ivanov is a Linux systems engineer, an open source developer, and a technology blogger who has been designing, configuring, deploying, and administering large-scale, highly available Linux environments for more than 15 years.

His interests include large distributed systems and task automation, along with solving technical challenges involving multiple technology stacks.

Konstantin received two master of science in computer science degrees from universities in Bulgaria and the United States, specializing in system and network security and software engineering.

In his spare time, he loves writing technology blogs and spending time with his two boys.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started with QEMU and KVM
2. Using libvirt to Manage KVM
3. KVM Networking with libvirt
4. Migrating KVM Instances
5. Monitoring and Backup of KVM Virtual Machines
6. Deploying KVM Instances with OpenStack
7. Using Python to Build and Manage KVM Instances
8. Kernel Tuning for KVM Performance