OpenShift Virtualization Service overview

What is OpenShift Virtualization Service?

OpenShift Virtualization Service provides a streamlined path to deploying virtualized infrastructure on IBM Cloud. Unlike manual OpenShift Virtualization deployments, Virtualization Service comes with essential components pre-configured and pre-installed, allowing you to start running virtual machines immediately after cluster creation.

How does Virtualization Service compare to manual deployment?

Virtualization Service provides a streamlined, pre-configured virtualization platform compared to manual OpenShift Virtualization deployment:

What are the cluster requirements for Virtualization Service?

Virtualization Service clusters must meet the following requirements:

Infrastructure

VPC with bare metal worker nodes only.

OpenShift version

4.21 or later.

Operating system

Red Hat CoreOS (RHCOS) only.

Network

OVN-Kubernetes CNI with MTU 8900 (OVN) and 9000 (worker nodes).

Storage

OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF) with local NVME storage or VPC File Storage (one option must be selected during cluster creation). VPC File Storage support is available as a beta feature.

Licensing

OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) license.

These settings are automatically configured during cluster creation and cannot be changed after deployment.

Which bare metal flavors are supported?

Virtualization Service supports specific VPC bare metal flavors optimized for virtualization workloads. For a complete list of supported flavors, see Worker node flavors.

To check bare metal flavor availability in the CLI:

ibmcloud ks flavors --zone ZONE --provider vpc-gen2 | grep metal

To verify that a specific flavor supports Virtualization Service, use the following command and check for the openshift-vs tag in the output:

ibmcloud ks flavor get --flavor FLAVOR --zone ZONE --provider vpc-gen2

Where is Virtualization Service available?

Virtualization Service is available in the following regions:

• Dallas (us-south)
• Washington DC (us-east)
• Toronto (ca-tor)
• Montreal (ca-mon)
• Frankfurt (eu-de)

What are the limitations of Virtualization Service?

For a full list of limitations, see OpenShift Virtualization Service limitations.

How is Virtualization Service priced?

Virtualization Service uses OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) licensing, which is more cost-effective than full OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) licensing for virtualization-focused workloads.

Pricing includes:

Infrastructure costs

Bare metal worker nodes with local NVME storage.

OVE license charges

Per instance-hour, for a bare metal worker node.

Storage costs

NVME storage cost is included in the bare metal infrastructure cost.

For detailed pricing information, see the IBM Cloud Pricing Calculator.

How does the Virtualization Service cluster license compare to a standard Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster license?

The following table compares the features included in the OpenShift Virtualization Engine (OVE) license used by Virtualization Service versus the full OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) license used by standard OpenShift clusters.

License entitlement comparison between OVE and OCP
This table compares the features included in two Red Hat OpenShift license types. The row headers identify the feature. The column headers identify the license type: OVE (Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Service entitlement) and OCP (Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud license entitlement). To understand which features are included in a license, navigate to the row for the feature you are interested in and check for a checkmark icon in the column for the license type.

Component	Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Service on IBM Cloud	Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud
License	Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine	Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform
Enterprise Secured Kubernetes
Hosted control planes
Operator Lifecycle Manager
Compliance and File Integrity Operators
Virtual machine-based workload hosting
Container-based infra workload hosting
User Workload Monitoring	*
Platform Logging	*
OpenShift GitOps	*
Metering and Cost Management SaaS Service
Container-based user application hosting
RHEL guest and hosted virtual OpenShift subscriptions included
Runtimes, Build Tools, and IDE
CI/CD Pipelines
Serverless
Service Mesh
Tracing
Multi-cluster complete management with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management
Kubernetes-native security with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security
Scalable, central registry with Red Hat Quay
Persistent software-defined storage and essential data services with OpenShift Data Foundation Essentials

*VMs only.

The OVE license used by Virtualization Service is optimized for running virtual machines and includes essential platform features. For workloads that require container-based applications, CI/CD pipelines, or advanced features like Service Mesh and Serverless, use a standard OpenShift cluster with the full OCP license.

Next steps

• Getting started with OpenShift Virtualization Service
• Tutorial: Creating a Virtualization Service cluster
• Managing Virtualization Service clusters