1.7. Virtualization

System monitoring via SNMP, BZ#642556: This feature provides KVM support for stable technology that is already used in data center with bare metal systems. SNMP is the standard for monitoring and is extremely well understood as well as computationally efficient. System monitoring via SNMP in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 allows the KVM hosts to send SNMP traps on events so that hypervisor events can be communicated to the user via standard SNMP protocol. This feature is provided through the addition of a new package: libvirt-snmp. This feature is introduced as a Technology Preview.
Wire speed requirement in KVM network drivers: Virtualization and cloud products that run networking work loads need to run wire speeds. Up until Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1, the only way to reach wire speed on a 10 GB Ethernet NIC with a lower CPU utilization was to use PCI device assignment (passthrough), which limits other features like memory overcommit and guest migration
The macvtap/vhost zero-copy capabilities allows the user to use those features when high performance is required. This feature improves performance for any Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x guest in the VEPA use case. This feature is introduced as a Technology Preview.