3.3. Network Architecture

Networking in Red Hat Virtualization includes basic networking, networking within a cluster, and host networking configurations.

Basic networking
The basic hardware and software elements that facilitate networking.
Networking within a cluster
Network interactions among cluster objects such as hosts, logical networks and virtual machines.
Host networking configurations
Supported configurations for networking within a host.

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

An alternative method of managing your network is by integrating with Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), by configuring Red Hat Virtualization on Cisco’s Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) version 3.1(1) and later according to Cisco’s documentation. On the Red Hat Virtualization side, all that is required is connecting the hosts' NICs to the network and the virtual machines' vNICs to the required network. The remaining configuration tasks are managed by Cisco ACI.