Differences Between OpenVZ 6 and OpenVZ 7 Virtual Servers

As you may know already, OpenVZ 6 will no longer be supported towards the end of the year (Nov 2018). Many hosts are working like us (hopefully!) on migrating customers to new OpenVZ 7 based nodes. Here we share the key differences between the old and new OpenVZ version.

Newer Kernel Version

OpenVZ 6 ran on the 2.6.32 kernel base however OpenVZ 7 is running later 3.x kernel. Nearly there, it may eventually support 4.x in the future too but they are still way behind.

Support For Hardware Virtualisation

Unlike OpenVZ 6 where you share the host nodes kernel, OpenVZ 7 can support hardware virtualisation. This allows full isolation guest environment using KVM virtualisation (libvirt). However, by default, you can share the host node kernel allowing higher density and performance just like OpenVZ 6.

New EZ Template Format / Newer OS

This one we really like! The new EZ templates allow easy customisation and super fast (re)installation of containers. Packages can be updated on templates easily as well. Unlike OpenVZ 6 you may run Ubuntu 18.04 containers on OpenVZ 6.

Is OpenVZ still the way forward?

We believe the future is definitely towards standalone KVM virtual servers. Especially since Virtuozzo is prioritising heavily it’s “Virtuozzo 7” (commercial offering) with fewer updates to OpenVZ 7 (community edition).