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Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. Prerequisites
The Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization platform comprises various components which work seamlessly together, enabling the system administrator to install, configure and manage a virtualized environment. After reading this guide, you will be able to set up Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization as represented in the following diagram:
Overview of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization components
Figure 1.1. Overview of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization components

1.1. Prerequisites

The following requirements are typical for small- to medium-sized installations. Note that the exact requirements of the setup depend on the specific installation, sizing and load. Please use the following requirements as guidelines:
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager
  • Minimum - Dual core server with 4 GB RAM, with 25 GB free disk space and 1 Gbps network interface.
  • Recommended - Dual Sockets/Quad core server with 16 GB RAM, 50 GB free disk space on multiple disk spindles and 1 Gbps network interface.
    The breakdown of the server requirements are as below:
    • For the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 operating system: minimum 1 GB RAM and 5 GB local disk space.
    • For the Manager: minimum 3 GB RAM, 3 GB local disk space and 1 Gbps network controller bandwidth.
    • If you wish to create an ISO domain on the Manager server, you need minimum 15 GB disk space.

    Important — Supported Locales

    The Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager setup script, rhevm-setup, supports the en_US.UTF-8, en_US.utf8, and en_US.utf-8 locales. Ensure that you install the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager on a system where the locale in use is one of these supported values.
  • A valid Red Hat Network subscription to the following channels:
    • rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevm-3
    • jbappplatform-5-x86_64-server-6-rpm
    • rhel-x86_64-server-supplementary-6
  • A client for connecting to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager.
    • Microsoft Windows (7, XP, 2003 or 2008) with Internet Explorer 7 and above
    • Microsoft .NET Framework 4
For each Host (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor or Red Hat Enterprise Linux)
  • Minimum - Dual core server, 10 GB RAM and 10 GB Storage, 1 Gbps network interface.
  • Recommended - Dual socket server, 16 GB RAM and 50 GB storage, two 1 Gbps network interfaces.
    The breakdown of the server requirements are as below:
    • For each host: AMD-V or Intel VT enabled, AMD64 or Intel 64 extensions, minimum 1 GB RAM, 3 GB free storage and 1 Gbps network interface.
    • For virtual machines running on each host: minimum 1 GB RAM per virtual machine.
  • Valid Red Hat Network subscriptions for each host. You can use either Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor or Red Hat Enterprise Linux hosts, or both.
    • For each Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor host: rhel-x86_64-server-6-rhevh
    • For each Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Linux host: rhel-x86_64-rhev-mgmt-agent-6
Storage and Networking
  • At least one of the supported storage types (NFS, iSCSI and FCP).
    • For NFS storage, a valid IP address and export path is required.
    • For iSCSI storage, a valid IP address and target information is required.
  • Static IP addresses for the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager server and for each host server.
  • DNS service which can resolve (forward and reverse) all the IP addresses.
  • An existing DHCP server which can allocate network addresses for the virtual machines.
Virtual Machines
  • Installation images for creating virtual machines, depending on which operating system you wish to use.
    • Microsoft Windows XP, 7, 2003 or 2008.
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4, 5 or 6.
  • Valid licenses or subscription entitlements for each operating system.
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization User Portal
  • A Red Hat Enterprise Linux client running Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and higher or a Windows client running Internet Explorer 7 and higher.