Virtualization

You can use SUSE Manager to manage virtualized clients in addition to regular traditional or Salt clients. In this type of installation, a virtual host is installed on the SUSE Manager Server to manage any number of virtual guests. If you choose to, you can install several virtual hosts to manage groups of guests.

The range of capabilities that virtualized clients have depends on the third-party virtualization provider you choose.

Xen and KVM hosts and guests can be managed directly in SUSE Manager. This enables you to autoinstall hosts and guests using AutoYaST or Kickstart, and manage guests in the Web UI.

For VMWare, including VMWare vSphere, SUSE Manager requires you to set up a virtual host manager (VHM) to control the VMs. This gives you control over the hosts and guests, but in a more limited way than available with Xen and KVM.

Other third-party virtualization providers are not directly supported by SUSE Manager. However, if your provider allows you to export a JSON configuration file for the VM, you can upload that configuration file to SUSE Manager and manage it with a VHM.