Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization networking can be discussed in terms of basic networking, networking within a cluster, and host networking configurations. Basic networking terms cover the basic hardware and software elements that facilitate networking. Networking within a cluster includes network interactions among cluster level objects such as hosts, logical networks and virtual machines. Host networking configurations covers supported configurations for networking within a host.

A well designed and built network ensures, for example, that high bandwidth tasks receive adequate bandwidth, that user interactions are not crippled by latency, and virtual machines can be successfully migrated within a migration domain. A poorly built network can cause, for example, unacceptable latency, and migration and cloning failures resulting from network flooding.