Can FreeNAS replace oVirt?

RJ_fr33

Dabbler
Joined
Jan 10, 2020
Messages
26
Hello,

I was looking at oVirt, then i found FreeNAS. I see that FreeNAS can manage VMs and containers just fine. Then why do people build and use oVirt?
There must be something which I am not seeing about oVirt....

I want to have home built FreeNAS setup, I am not sure it will be so good that i would not need any oVirt type additional server. Please advice.

Thanks.
RJ
 

artlessknave

Wizard
Joined
Oct 29, 2016
Messages
1,506
"oVirt is a free, open-source virtualization management platform. "
"FreeNAS is a free and open-source network-attached storage software based on FreeBSD and the OpenZFS file system. "
they do different things as their primary purpose. oVirt is a web interface that manages hypervisors, (freenas is a NAS with an included hypervisor - bhyve and freebsd jails GUI managment) and does nothing freenas does from what I can see.
you are comparing apples to *hamburgers*, these are not even close to the same category.
 

RJ_fr33

Dabbler
Joined
Jan 10, 2020
Messages
26
sorry, arent both 'managing' VMs and containers? FreeNAS does more in addition i agree.

but what is that "regarding creating/managing VMs " which oVirt can do but FreeNAS cannot?
 

artlessknave

Wizard
Joined
Oct 29, 2016
Messages
1,506
sorry, arent both 'managing' VMs and containers?
no, freenas is network attached storage appliance with vm's and containers added on, it doesnt manage datacenters worth of VM's and VM hosts, just its own.
from what I can see, oVirt is vm managment. no NAS. it connects to OTHER servers to manage the VM's they host, it doesn't look like it is intended to host VM's at all, it manages them from a central location.
you're basically comparing vcenter to freenas, these things are not the same.
 

Cam Alliance

Cadet
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
4
For clarity & best results...

You would use FreeNAS as a backend NFS storage server for oVirt Virtualization Cluster management! oVirt takes a page from VMware's book, in regards to having "compute nodes" or "oVirt Node" (known in the VMware world as ESXi servers), which are physical baremetal hypervisor servers.

Then there's a "virtual management node", known as "oVirt Hosted Engine" or "vCenter" (in the VMware world), which is the control management interface, (a virtual management web interface to control all your vm's & containers). The actual vm images would be stored on FreeNAS NFS storage, not the compute nodes.

oVirt does also have the option to use storage locally on the compute nodes using built-in implementation of Gluster object storage, which negates the need for a backend storage server. However, it can be temperamental when upgrading at times, that why I choose to go the FreeNAS storage. When setting up an oVirt VM Cluster for clients!

If you are going to go the FreeNAS NFS backend route for oVirt, it is highly recommended to have a 10G backbone network as the compute nodes are communicating to the actual vm images through the network.
 

RJ_fr33

Dabbler
Joined
Jan 10, 2020
Messages
26
For clarity & best results...

You would use FreeNAS as a backend NFS storage server for oVirt Virtualization Cluster management! oVirt takes a page from VMware's book, in regards to having "compute nodes" or "oVirt Node" (known in the VMware world as ESXi servers), which are physical baremetal hypervisor servers.

Then there's a "virtual management node", known as "oVirt Hosted Engine" or "vCenter" (in the VMware world), which is the control management interface, (a virtual management web interface to control all your vm's & containers). The actual vm images would be stored on FreeNAS NFS storage, not the compute nodes.

oVirt does also have the option to use storage locally on the compute nodes using built-in implementation of Gluster object storage, which negates the need for a backend storage server. However, it can be temperamental when upgrading at times, that why I choose to go the FreeNAS storage. When setting up an oVirt VM Cluster for clients!

If you are going to go the FreeNAS NFS backend route for oVirt, it is highly recommended to have a 10G backbone network as the compute nodes are communicating to the actual vm images through the network.

Hello Cam,

sorry for a late response. But I wanted to thank you for the clarity of your reply.

Also, this is what I understand now:
Have VMs on FreeNAS, and run them on oVirt server(??? download image at runtime and execute in memory???)

or Have the images in NAS and run them in NAS, but manage using another PC running "oVirt Hosted Engine" ??

or, another thing I was thinking: to have a separate server (from my FreeNAS) running "oVirt Node", and manage it from FreeNAS with "oVirt Hosted Engine" running as a VM in FreeNAS. is that even possible???

and are those two the only thing I need? ( "oVirt Node" and "oVirt Hosted Engine")

By next weekend my FreeNAS server would be up and running (hopefully :) )

Thank you.
RJ
 
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