Hi,

I am evaluating different virtualization platforms and it is time for KVM. My main points of concern are regarding four issues. But lest's start with High Availability.

In VMware (which I think is great but too costly), you set up HA for a cluster easily from the vCenter manager. Once it is set up, even with the vCenter server offline, the system will react to a server poweroff by "migrating" VMs to another server within the cluster. Therefore, it is some sort of distributed system where is not a single point of failure. On the other hand, RHEV has a centralized manager controlling it all and it it fails, no HA will be available at all.

My question is... which HA model does KVM provide? vMware? RHEV? Other?. Will my system still have HA if the management node falls?. Also, any recommended tool for my virtual platform management?.

Here is my second question that most concerns me about KVM... It is regarding Load Balancin. Is there something similar to vMware's DRS in KVM?, and storage balancing?.

And here is my last question regarding KVM vs vMware... This time the question is for Fault Tolerance mechanisms. Does KVM provide mirroring of a critical server to allow zero-downtime in case of on server's error?. If not, how can this been achieved with KVM?.

Cheers!