VMs that outperform bare metal.
The Hypervisor Scale is the foundation of Tophan’s compute layer. It manages virtual machines with a focus on performance, density, and operational simplicity.
Most virtualisation platforms treat performance as an afterthought — they add layers of abstraction and hope the overhead stays acceptable. Tophan’s Hypervisor Scale is built from the ground up around KVM, with memory deduplication and intelligent scheduling that regularly lets VMs outperform equivalent bare-metal configurations through better resource utilisation.
| Feature | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| KVM Integration | Direct kernel-level virtualisation. No middleware, no translation layers. | Stable |
| KSM Memory Dedup | Identical memory pages across VMs are stored once. 100 identical VMs use barely more RAM than 10. | Stable |
| GPU Passthrough | Full PCI passthrough for GPUs. Native driver performance inside VMs for AI/ML, rendering, and desktop workloads. | Beta |
| QMP Protocol | Machine-level VM control via QEMU Machine Protocol. Scriptable, automatable, no UI required. | Stable |
| Live Migration | Move running VMs between nodes with zero downtime. Millisecond switchover. | Beta |
| VM Templates | Golden images for rapid provisioning. One template, unlimited deployments, all deduplicated. | Beta |
| Snapshot Management | Point-in-time snapshots with instant rollback. Layered on the immutable storage model. | Beta |
| Resource Limits | CPU pinning, NUMA-aware placement, memory ballooning, I/O throttling. | Stable |
| SPICE Console | Full graphical console access through Dragon’s Eye. No separate client needed. | Beta |
| Cloud-Init | Automatic VM configuration on first boot. Networking, users, packages, scripts. | Stable |
┌──────────────────────────┐
│ Dragon's Eye │ Management
├──────────────────────────┤
│ tophand │ Orchestration
├──────────────────────────┤
│ Hypervisor Scale API │ VM lifecycle
├──────────────────────────┤
│ QMP / libvirt │ Machine control
├──────────────────────────┤
│ KVM / QEMU │ Virtualisation
├──────────────────────────┤
│ Linux Kernel │ Hardware access
└──────────────────────────┘
The Hypervisor Scale exposes a clean REST API consumed by tophand. All VM operations — create, start, stop, migrate, snapshot — flow through this API. Dragon’s Eye provides the human interface, but every operation is equally accessible via CLI or automation.
KSM (Kernel Same-page Merging) is always active. When you run 50 VMs from the same template, the hypervisor detects identical memory pages and stores them once. As VMs diverge, only the differences consume additional RAM.
This means you can dramatically overprovision memory — safely — because real consumption tracks actual divergence, not nominal allocation. A host with 128GB of RAM can comfortably run workloads with 300GB+ of nominal allocation if they share a common base.
Full IOMMU-based PCI passthrough gives VMs direct hardware access to GPUs. The VM runs the manufacturer’s native drivers with no performance penalty. This is essential for: