KubeVirt 0.59: Virtual Machine Management Evolution

Introduction

KubeVirt 0.59, released on October 25, 2023, is most relevant if you’re operating Kubernetes in production and want fewer surprises. This post walks through the highlights and the kinds of operational scenarios where the changes tend to matter first.

VM Lifecycle Improvements

• VM creation optimizations reduce startup time and improve reliability.
• VM migration enhancements enable live migration with minimal downtime.
• VM snapshots improvements provide better backup and restore capabilities.
• VM cloning features enable faster VM provisioning from templates.

Storage Integration

1. CSI integration improvements provide better compatibility with storage backends.
2. Volume management enhancements enable better volume attachment and detachment.
3. Snapshot capabilities provide efficient VM backup and restore operations.
4. Storage classes enable flexible storage provisioning for VMs.

Networking Improvements

• Network policies integration enables better network isolation and security.
• Multi-network support enables VMs to connect to multiple networks.
• Hot-plug capabilities enable adding and removing network interfaces without restart.
• Service integration provides better Kubernetes service connectivity for VMs.

Performance & Reliability

• CPU management improvements provide better resource allocation and performance.
• Memory management enhancements enable better memory allocation and overcommit.
• I/O performance optimizations improve disk and network I/O performance.
• Monitoring improvements provide better visibility into VM performance and health.

Getting Started

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/releases/download/v0.59.0/kubevirt-operator.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/releases/download/v0.59.0/kubevirt-cr.yaml

Create a VirtualMachine:

apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
kind: VirtualMachine
metadata:
  name: my-vm
spec:
  running: true
  template:
    spec:
      domain:
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: 2Gi
        devices:
          disks:
          - name: disk0
            disk:
              bus: virtio
      volumes:
      - name: disk0
        containerDisk:
          image: registry:5000/containerdisks/fedora:latest

Summary

KubeVirt 0.59 provides teams with powerful virtualization capabilities for running VMs alongside containers on Kubernetes.