Managing KVM virtual machines
The SC//Reliant™ platform for Edge Computing can host your applications and run them as virtual machines (VMs). The platform supports Linux and Windows 10 KVM virtual nodes. If you have containerized your applications, we also support Docker. For more information, see Managing Containers.
This is an overview of how the SC//Reliant platform manages your virtual machines.
Terminology
Before we get started, it's important to understand the common terminology we use in the rest of this document. Some of this terminology is standard across the industry, some is specific to the SC//Reliant platform, and some is industry-standard terminology that the SC//Reliant platform has adapted.
What is KVM?
KVM is an acronym for Kernel-based Virtual Machine, which is a virtualization module that was introduced to the Linux kernel as of version 2.6.20 that allows the kernel to function as a hypervisor. KVM works together with QEMU, which is an acronym for Quick Emulator, that emulates a computer's processor and hardware. This pair functions together as a Type-1 hypervisor and is sometimes referred to collectively as KVM/QEMU. For the purposes of this document we will refer to all Linux infrastructure used for creating virtual machines as simply KVM.
What is a virtual node?
On the SC//Reliant platform, a virtual node refers to either Docker containers or KVM virtual machines. For the purposes of this KVM-focused document, when we refer to a virtual node we are referring to a virtual machine.
When we refer to the physical Edge Platform device that is hosting the virtual nodes, we refer to them as a physical node or host machine.
What do we mean when we refer to a VM inside the cluster vs outside the cluster?
When referring to virtual machines as inside or outside the cluster, we are referring to whether or not the clustering software is monitoring the virtual machine to determine whether a failover is needed. If a virtual machine is inside the cluster, the cluster will fail over if there is an issue with providing that virtual machine. Any issues regarding a virtual machine that is outside of the cluster will not trigger a failover.
Next steps
Review the following documentation for more details about managing your KVM virtual machines.