CentOS 6 and KVM - Very Impressed

[dkilcy]

Hi,
I recently installed CentOS 6.4 and the KVM packages and one word: awesome.

I have been running Ubuntu for a while and then moved to Mint (after the whole Unity debacle) and used CentOS for work. However my main machine (a quad-core Intel 3770S with 16GB mem and 2 SSD's) was still running Windows, and somewhat underutilized.
So I decided to setup a dual boot with Windows 7 and CentOS. After several hours of fighting with the new UEFI BIOS I said screw it and blew away Windows.
To make a long story short I am so glad that I did.
I figured I would just run Windows in a VM for the few times I need to run TurboTax and to hedge my bets in case I am forced with no Linux alternative (like a recent online class I was taking that only supported IE).
So I decided I would use VMware Workstation since I used to work with ESXi in the past. Being somewhat under-impressed with Workstation and seeing this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=4344

I decided to try KVM in order to learn somethign new. In a few hours I was able to create VMs and setup bridged networking and man, this is sweet.
I spent more time trying to debug the problem from the above thread than it took me to get KVM working from scratch with no knowledge.
I wanted to say thanks and a shout-out to the guys who put this all together this is a great OS and I plan on phasing out my other Linux distributions over time as I am into stability now adays.

To make sure I am understanding KVM: So KVM is built into the kernel, similar to the way that VMware ESX is, which means there is no paravirtualization or other nonsense like with Workstation and Player?
Also I thought I saw something somewhere that KVM is going to replace Xen in CentOS and that Xen hypervisor is pretty much legacy technology at the moment. Is that correct?

Because so far the performance is absolutely phenominal. I used ESX on hardware alot more poweful than mine and sofar my VMs are visibily outperforming ESX and especially Workstation which is kudgy at best.
What a great distro. I hope to be here on the forums and contributing in the future.
Looking forward to talking with you guys.