Nested Virtualization is possible with Clouding, and of course, it comes with no additional cost, allowing you to start using it right now. The possibilities for implementing it are vast, with a wide variety of virtualization management software available for x86/amd64 architectures.

This article mentions some of these options, with a brief overview of each. However, we should first explain what QEMU and the KVM component are, as most virtualization environments rely on them.

Additionally, you can check the compatibility of virtualization software in the following list:

*Requires graphical interface

KVM/QEMU

QEMU is a processor emulator based on dynamic binary translation. In other words, it converts the host's binary code into code understandable by the guest architecture. It was developed by Fabrice Bellard, also known for other open-source projects like FFmpeg.Later, the Israeli software company Qumranet (later acquired by Red Hat) developed the KVM module, which is now integrated into the Linux Kernel, leveraging QEMU to create a new model based on it.

In this model, system calls are made natively using the module, allowing execution to occur directly while QEMU provides the rest of the functionality (emulating other devices).The following image shows a representation of the KVM/QEMU virtualization environment:

Since the development of KVM, many graphical management tools have emerged to simplify the administration of virtual machines. In the next section, you’ll find a list of some of these tools with a brief description. Additionally, if you want to see an example of virtualization without a graphical tool, check out the following article: How to Virtualize Android with QEMU/KVM.

Graphical Management Tools

Apache CloudStack

Apache CloudStack is an open-source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines as a highly available and scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform. CloudStack is used by various service providers to offer public cloud services and by many companies to provide a private cloud offering or as part of a hybrid cloud solution.

CloudStack is a turnkey solution that includes the entire "stack" of features most organizations want with an IaaS cloud: compute orchestration, network as a service, user and account management, a full and open native API, resource accounting, and a top-notch user interface (UI).

CloudStack currently supports the most popular hypervisors: VMware, KVM, Citrix XenServer, Xen Cloud Platform (XCP), Oracle VM server, and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Users can manage their cloud with an easy-to-use web interface, command-line tools, and/or a full-featured RESTful API. Additionally, CloudStack provides an API for organizations looking to deploy hybrid clouds.

Cloudmin

Cloudmin is a user interface built on Webmin for managing virtual systems, such as Xen, KVM, and OpenVZ instances. With Cloudmin, you can create, destroy, resize, start, stop, and restrict multiple instances using different virtualization technologies from a single interface. It also features a complete command-line API that can be used to manage virtual systems from a shell script or via HTTP requests.

Cloudmin is designed for VPS hosting companies that sell virtual systems to their clients but is also suitable for anyone looking to get into virtualization for managing applications, testing, controlling a Virtualmin host cluster, or simply learning about cloud computing.

OpenStack

OpenStack is a free and open-standard cloud computing platform (Apache license). It is deployed primarily as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in public and private clouds, where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software platform consists of interrelated components that control diverse multi-vendor hardware pools of processing, storage, and networking resources within a data center. Users manage it through a web-based dashboard, command-line tools, or RESTful web services.

MicroStack

MicroStack is a pure distribution of OpenStack that effectively reduces virtualization costs. It is a reasonable alternative to VMware clusters, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Hypervisor, and Proxmox Virtualization Environment.

Note: MicroStack is currently in beta.

Proxmox

Proxmox VE is a complete open-source server management platform for enterprise virtualization. It tightly integrates the KVM hypervisor and Linux containers (LXC), software-defined storage, and networking functionality into a single platform. With the built-in web-based user interface, you can easily manage virtual machines and containers, high-availability clusters, or integrated disaster recovery tools, etc.

Kimchi

Kimchi is an HTML5-based graphical management tool for KVM, designed to make it as easy as possible to get started with KVM. You can manage KVM guests through libvirt with a web-based administration interface using an HTML5-compatible browser and incorporates a noVNC and SPICE client viewer, offering a full graphical console.

It runs as a plug-in to Wok, which is a web framework based on cherrypy with HTML5 support originated in Kimchi. It can be extended with plug-ins that expose functionality through REST APIs. Examples of such plug-ins are Kimchi (Virtualization Management), Ginger-Base (Basic Host Administration), and Ginger (System Administration).

Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager)

The virt-manager application is a desktop user interface for managing virtual machines through libvirt. It is primarily aimed at KVM virtual machines but also manages Xen and LXC (Linux containers). It presents a summary view of running domains, their live performance, and resource utilization statistics. Wizards allow the creation of new domains and the configuration and adjustment of a domain's virtual resource allocation and virtual hardware. A built-in VNC and SPICE client viewer provides a full graphical console for the guest domain.

oVirt

oVirt is an open-source distributed virtualization solution designed to manage all virtual machine infrastructure, compute, storage, and network resources from an easy-to-use, platform-independent web-based front-end. oVirt uses the reliable KVM hypervisor and is based on other community projects such as libvirt, Gluster, PatternFly, and Ansible.

It was founded by Red Hat as a community project on which Red Hat Virtualization is based. KVM on the x86-64, PowerPC64, and s390x architectures are the only supported hypervisors, but there is an ongoing effort to support the ARM architecture in future versions.

Other Alternatives

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a virtualization software for x86/amd64 architectures. It is currently developed by Oracle Corporation as part of its virtualization product family. With this application, it is possible to install additional operating systems, known as "guest systems," within another "host" operating system, each with its own virtual environment. Supported host operating systems include GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp, Genode, Windows, and Solaris/OpenSolaris, and within them, it is possible to virtualize operating systems such as FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, OpenBSD, OS/2 Warp, Windows, Solaris, MS-DOS, Genode, and many others.

Xen Project

Xen is a type-1 hypervisor originating from the University of Cambridge. It provides secure isolation, resource control, quality of service guarantees, and live migration of virtual machines. The Xen Project is currently available for the IA-32, x86-64, and ARM instruction sets.

The Xen Project community develops and maintains the project as free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2.

OpenVZ (Virtuozzo)

OpenVZ is the basis of Virtuozzo, a commercial software developed by SWsoft, Inc. OpenVZ is a free software product licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL version 2. It is an operating system-level virtualization technology for Linux that allows a physical server to run multiple isolated instances of operating systems, known as Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or Virtual Environments (VE).

Compared to virtual machines such as VMware, VirtualBox, and virtualization technologies like Xen, OpenVZ offers less flexibility in choosing the operating system: both guests and hosts must be Linux (although different GNU/Linux distributions can be used in different VEs). However, OpenVZ's operating system-level virtualization provides better performance, scalability, density, dynamic resource management, and ease of administration than alternatives.

VMware (Workstation, Player, Fusion)

VMware Fusion is a line of desktop hypervisor products designed for modern application developers, IT professionals, and anyone who wants to run virtual machines, OCI containers, and Kubernetes clusters on a Mac. The two editions, Fusion Pro and Fusion Player, allow users to run Windows and other operating systems directly on macOS without rebooting. Fusion offers the simplicity suited for individual users and the power that IT professionals, developers, and businesses can rely on every day.

VMware Workstation Player, formerly VMware Player, is a virtualization software package for x64 computers running Microsoft Windows or Linux, provided free of charge by VMware, Inc., a company that was previously a division of Dell EMC and whose majority shareholder remains. Older versions of Player did not support nested virtualization, and modern versions on Windows default to using Hyper-V. Therefore, it is not compatible with Clouding.

We hope this article has been helpful to you 🙂. Remember, if you have questions about this or any other issue related to your Clouding servers, feel free to write to soporte@clouding.io We are here to assist you with whatever you need!