Running KVM Virtual Machines in Batch Systems

This paper describes a framework for deploying virtual machines as jobs in a batch system. It also adds management features and the concept of template machines that can used for efficiently dispatching new instances. The technology used for virtualization is the open-source Kernel-based Virtual Machines supported by Red Hat, since the Qcow2 disk format provides important support for templates. The document describes also how the infrastructure controlled by this framework can be used for testing and student evaluation, as special security policies are required for those purposes. The framework was implemented and tested on the NCIT Cluster [8].