Run RHEL-certified apps on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization

As IT environments continue to evolve toward hybrid and cloud-native architectures, organizations are looking for ways to modernize their infrastructure without abandoning the reliability, support and investments tied to traditional virtualization platforms. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a pivotal role in this journey, serving as a stable and trusted foundation for certified applications and supported hardware.

With Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization—a built-in capability of Red Hat OpenShift—teams can now run virtual machines (VMs) and containers side-by-side on a unified platform. This enables a smoother transition to modern infrastructure while maintaining compatibility with existing software and hardware certified for RHEL.

In this blog, we explore how OpenShift inherits RHEL's robust hardware and software compatibility, and what organizations should consider when running RHEL-certified applications inside VMs on OpenShift Virtualization. We’ll cover key factors such as third-party vendor support, hardware dependencies and performance implications to help you make informed decisions when adopting a cloud-native platform.

Unified hardware certification across Red Hat solutions

Because OpenShift is built on top of RHEL, it benefits directly from RHEL's extensive hardware certification program. Any server hardware that is certified to run a RHEL version is automatically compatible with the corresponding OpenShift version. 

By leveraging RHEL's robust certification ecosystem, OpenShift users can confidently deploy on a wide range of industry-standard hardware without the need for additional validation. This inherited certification streamlines infrastructure planning and ensures a consistent, reliable foundation for enterprise workloads, both containerized and virtualized.

Certified for RHEL, ready for OpenShift Virtualization

Software compatibility on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) isn’t just assumed—it’s earned through a structured verification process. For a software application to be recognized by Red Hat as compatible with RHEL, it must undergo rigorous testing to ensure it runs reliably and securely on the platform. This testing is typically performed by the software vendor using a specialized suite of tools provided by Red Hat.

Once an application passes these tests, it is considered certified for RHEL. However, certification isn’t a one-time event. Vendors are responsible for keeping their software up to date with the latest versions and patches of RHEL, ensuring ongoing compatibility as the operating system evolves. 

Based on this rigorous process, applications that are certified to run on RHEL are also compatible with OpenShift Virtualization when deployed in VMs. This provides organizations with a high degree of confidence when migrating or extending their workloads to a cloud-native platform, knowing that their software investments remain fully supported. Browse compatible applications that can run on OpenShift Virtualization in the ecosystem catalog. 

Key benefits of running certified RHEL applications in VMs with OpenShift Virtualization:

• Support: Red Hat and the software vendor jointly support the combination of application, operating system and hypervisor (RHEL and OpenShift Virtualization)
• Security: The vendor has tested the software through rigorous lifecycle standards.
• Compliance: Certification simplifies audits and regulatory compliance.

Red Hat recommends engaging your application vendor early to ensure a smooth support experience. 

Considerations for utilizing hardware offload for applications 

When planning to deploy VMs on a new virtualization platform, it is important to rely on compatible components to ensure smooth execution, taking advantage of all the capabilities exposed by the server or bare-metal cloud instance and benefit from joint support from both hardware and hypervisor provider.

Red Hat OpenShift is built on the reliable and industry standard RHEL operating system, so any server, hardware component compatible with Red Hat OpenShift can be adopted to create your OpenShift Virtualization platform.

Some applications have a tight coupling with physical hardware, such as:

• Network appliances requiring specific SR-IOV configurations.
• GPU-accelerated applications.
• High-speed storage stacks.

In these cases, compatibility depends not just on the OS, but also on the hardware passthrough support in the virtualized environment. OpenShift Virtualization can accommodate these needs through:

• SR-IOV and PCI passthrough for direct device access.
• GPU passthrough and vGPU support (e.g., for AI/ML workloads or CAD software).

However, careful coordination is needed to ensure that:

1. The hardware or bare-metal cloud instance is supported by Red Hat OpenShift and RHEL.
2. The guest OS (e.g., RHEL) can properly utilize the device via virtualization.
3. The software vendor supports the software in this specific virtualized hardware setup.

If the software is compatible with qemu/KVM from a software vendor

If a software vendor claims their product is compatible with qemu/KVM, you're in a strong position to run it within OpenShift Virtualization. Since OpenShift Virtualization builds on KubeVirt, which in turn uses qemu/KVM, compatibility for KVM typically carries over. This includes virtual appliances delivered e.g. in OVA format.

Best practices include:

• Double-checking with the vendor about support boundaries in container-native virtualization environments.
• Following Red Hat's guidance for deploying and managing VMs in Red Hat OpenShift.
• Testing in a sandbox to validate performance, compatibility and operability.

Compatibility with qemu/KVM is a green flag - but confirming support in your specific platform and version is always wise.

Additional considerations

Performance concerns are common when virtualizing applications, especially those previously run on bare metal. Key factors to consider include:

• Near-native performance: OpenShift Virtualization is based on KVM/qemu, which is known for delivering near-native performance in many scenarios.
• NUMA and CPU pinning: For performance-sensitive applications, you can optimize CPU and memory configurations within OpenShift Virtualization.
• I/O performance: Take advantage of features like VirtIO drivers and SR-IOV to improve disk and network throughput.

Red Hat provides guidance for performance tuning in virtualized RHEL environments, which also applies to workloads in OpenShift Virtualization. Benchmarking and testing in a staging environment are strongly recommended before production rollout.

If configured correctly and in case the application is moved from some other virtualization solution to OpenShift Virtualization, there will typically be no performance hit.

Confidently run your workloads with OpenShift Virtualization 

While many applications are compatible with OpenShift Virtualization, application owners must still carefully evaluate whether their specific workloads are fully supported on their chosen virtualization platform. This involves checking not only basic compatibility but also performance, security and integration with other components in their environment. In some cases, vendors may need to provide additional validation or support statements to ensure enterprise readiness.

Red Hat has recognized this challenge and is addressing it by expanding its ecosystem catalog of certified software to include specific compatibility details for OpenShift Virtualization, helping users make more informed decisions.

OpenShift Virtualization enables organizations to modernize at their own pace by unifying traditional virtual machines and cloud-native containers on a single, enterprise-grade platform. By leveraging existing investments in RHEL-certified software and hardware, teams can streamline infrastructure modernization without compromising on performance, support, or stability. Running VMs alongside containers offers a flexible path toward greater agility, scalability, and operational efficiency—all while maintaining control and simplifying management.

Ready to future-proof your IT environment without leaving critical workloads behind? Explore what's possible with OpenShift Virtualization—get started today.