Unlike Red Hat and Novell, the big two enterprise Linux vendors, you can download and test Ubuntu without having to register or wade through sales pitches. Ubuntu Server, like KVM, is growing into an enterprise powerhouse. KVM supports pretty much any guest operating systems: Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, Windows, and whatever else you have lying around. Type 1 hypervisors, such as IBM's z/VM and VMWare ESXi, run on the bare metal and don't need operating systems. Some popular Type 2 hypervisors are Xen and VirtualBox. KVM is a Type 2 hypervisor, which means it runs inside an operating system. KVM is licensed under the GPL and is part of the mainline kernel, so any Linux distribution can support it. Red Hat bought Qumranet in 2008 and made KVM the core of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers. KVM, which stands for 'kernel-based virtual machine', was first developed by Qumranet. In this crash course we'll quickly get KVM up and running on Ubuntu Server, install multiple guests, manage storage, and migrate guests to new hosts.

It's lean, mean, fast, and runs unmodified guest operating systems with ease. KVM, the Linux kernel hypervisor, is the up-and-coming enterprise virtualization contender.

Virtualize ubuntu