Workshop overview

The virtualization modernization challenge

Many organizations today face a critical decision point with their virtualization infrastructure. Licensing changes, rising costs, and the need for cloud-native agility are driving teams to re-evaluate their approach to running virtual machine workloads.

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization and IBM Fusion together offer a path forward, enabling you to run VMs alongside containers on a single platform with enterprise-grade storage.

Your objective: Gain hands-on experience deploying, managing, and migrating virtual machine workloads using OpenShift Virtualization with IBM Fusion storage integration.

Success criteria

By the end of this workshop, you will have practical skills in:

  • Navigating the OpenShift Virtualization console and understanding the architecture

  • Creating and configuring virtual machines using templates and custom specifications

  • Leveraging IBM Fusion storage classes for persistent VM storage

  • Performing VM lifecycle operations such as live migration, snapshots, and cloning

  • Planning and executing workload migrations from legacy virtualization platforms using the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization

  • Perform backup and restore operations for your virtual machines

  • IBM Fusion Access for SAN to leverage your existing SAN infrastructure

Technical outcome: You will have hands-on experience running VM workloads on OpenShift with enterprise storage provided by IBM Fusion.

Target audience

This workshop is designed for:

  • Infrastructure architects evaluating virtualization modernization strategies

  • Site reliability engineers managing hybrid VM and container environments

  • Platform engineers building and operating OpenShift-based infrastructure

  • Infrastructure engineers responsible for VM workload management

What you need to succeed

You should have:

  • Basic understanding of virtualization concepts (VMs, hypervisors, datastores)

  • Familiarity with Red Hat OpenShift navigation (projects, operators, console)

  • Comfort using a terminal and command line tools

  • No prior OpenShift Virtualization or IBM Fusion experience required

Why OpenShift Virtualization with IBM Fusion

Current challenges facing virtualization teams:

  • Licensing uncertainty: Changing vendor strategies create cost and continuity risks

  • Siloed infrastructure: VMs and containers managed on separate platforms increase operational overhead

  • Storage complexity: VM workloads require enterprise-grade persistent storage with data protection

  • Migration risk: Moving workloads between platforms involves downtime and validation effort

How this workshop addresses them:

  • Unified platform: Run VMs and containers side by side on OpenShift, managed with familiar Kubernetes tooling

  • Enterprise storage: IBM Fusion provides persistent, performant storage with snapshot and replication capabilities

  • Simplified migration: The Migration Toolkit for Virtualization automates workload migration from legacy platforms

  • Operational consistency: A single management plane for all workloads reduces complexity and training overhead

Workshop modules

Module 1: Exploring the environment (~20 minutes)

Tour the OpenShift console, OpenShift Virtualization operator, and IBM Fusion storage integration. Create your first VM from a template.

Module 2: VM lifecycle management (~20 minutes)

Configure VMs with custom resources, work with IBM Fusion-backed storage, and perform live migration, snapshots, and cloning.

Module 3: Workload migration (~25 minutes)

Use the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization to plan and execute a migration from a legacy virtualization platform.

Module 4: Optional - IBM Fusion Backup and Restore Recipes (If time permits)

Leverage IBM Fusion Backup and Restore services for your applications and virtual machines.

Common questions

"Can we run our existing VM workloads without changes?"

Yes. OpenShift Virtualization runs standard VM images. Module 1 demonstrates creating VMs from existing templates and images.

"What about storage performance for VM workloads?"

IBM Fusion provides enterprise-grade storage optimized for both VM and container workloads. Module 2 covers storage configuration and performance considerations.

"How disruptive is the migration process?"

The Migration Toolkit for Virtualization supports warm migration with minimal downtime. Module 3 walks through the full migration workflow.

"Do we need to retrain our entire operations team?"

OpenShift Virtualization uses familiar VM management concepts within the OpenShift console. The learning curve is manageable for teams with existing virtualization experience.