thanks Gianluca for the well thought out response.   I started over and tried to install RHEL 8 with ovirt 4.4.   I ran into a few problems, which may be related.   First was that the module javapackages-tools could not be found.

# yum module enable javapackages-tools
Updating Subscription Management repositories.
Last metadata expiration check: 0:17:45 ago on Fri 29 Jan 2021 07:02:20 PM CST.
Error: Problems in request:
missing groups or modules: javapackages-tools

Then, the install of ovirt-engine relies on apache-commons-compress, but no version could pass module filtering.

[root@r8-bacchus yum.repos.d]# yum install ovirt-engine
Updating Subscription Management repositories.
Last metadata expiration check: 0:12:16 ago on Fri 29 Jan 2021 07:02:20 PM CST.
Error:
 Problem: package ovirt-engine-4.4.4.7-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - cannot install the best candidate for the job
  - package apache-commons-compress-1.20-1.module+el8.2.1+6727+059d025f.noarch is filtered out by modular filtering
  - package apache-commons-compress-1.20-3.module+el8.2.1+7436+4afdca1f.noarch is filtered out by modular filtering
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages or '--nobest' to use not only best candidate packages)

[root@r8-bacchus yum.repos.d]# yum install ovirt-engine --nobest
Updating Subscription Management repositories.
Last metadata expiration check: 0:14:26 ago on Fri 29 Jan 2021 07:02:20 PM CST.
Error:
 Problem: conflicting requests
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.0.3-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.1-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.10-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.2-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.3-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.4-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.5-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.6-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.7-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.1.8-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.2.6-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.10-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.11-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.12-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.3-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.4-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.5-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.6-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.7-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.8-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.3.9-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.4-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.4.1-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.4.2-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.4.3-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.4.4-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.4.5-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package ovirt-engine-4.4.4.7-1.el8.noarch requires apache-commons-compress, but none of the providers can be installed
  - package apache-commons-compress-1.20-1.module+el8.2.1+6727+059d025f.noarch is filtered out by modular filtering
  - package apache-commons-compress-1.20-3.module+el8.2.1+7436+4afdca1f.noarch is filtered out by modular filtering
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages)
(failed reverse-i-search)`java=': yum module list |grep -i ^Cva

Sorry for the length of these errors.   I just thought --nobest might find something for me.

Here is the enabled modules....

[root@r8-bacchus yum.repos.d]# yum module list --enabled
Updating Subscription Management repositories.
Last metadata expiration check: 0:23:39 ago on Fri 29 Jan 2021 07:02:20 PM CST.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for x86_64 - AppStream (RPMs)
Name               Stream       Profiles Summary                                
container-tools    rhel8 [d][e] common [ Most recent (rolling) versions of podma
                                d]       n, buildah, skopeo, runc, conmon, runc,
                                          conmon, CRIU, Udica, etc as well as de
                                         pendencies such as container-selinux bu
                                         ilt and tested together, and updated as
                                          frequently as every 12 weeks.
pki-deps           10.6 [e]              PKI Dependencies module for PKI 10.6 or
                                          later
postgresql         12 [e]       client,  PostgreSQL server and client module    
                                server [
                                d]      
python36           3.6 [d][e]   build, c Python programming language, version 3.
                                ommon [d 6
                                ]        
satellite-5-client 1.0 [d][e]   common [ Red Hat Satellite 5 client packages    
                                d], gui  
virt               rhel [d][e]  common [ Virtualization module                  
                                d]      

Hint: [d]efault, [e]nabled, [x]disabled, [i]nstalled

Paul

On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 5:21 PM Gianluca Cecchi <gianluca.cecchi@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jan 29, 2021 at 8:44 PM Paul Dyer <pmdyermms@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,

I am laying the groupwork for upgrade ovirt to 4.4.   Since the standalone ovirt mgr is now running on RHEL 7, I have installed RHEL 8 to a new VM.   Unfortunately, after installing ovirt-release43, I am not able to find documentation for the dnf modules required.   All the current documentation point to ovirt-release44 and dnf modules not available for ovirt 4.3/RHEL 8.



oVirt 4.3.x (both engine server and hypervisors) are only based on CentOS 7.x or RH EL 7.x
oVirt 4.4.y (both engine server and hypervisors) are only based on CentOS 8.x or RH EL 8.x

I think 4.3 on RH EL 8 never tested at all by the developers.

If your target is upgrade from 4.3 to 4.4 you have to do an "application" backup of the 4.3 engine (see the link at the bottom) and restore it on the new engine in 4.4, that is a scratch install on a new system, but can have the same ip/hostname as the old engine server, so that it could be transparent from an user access point of view.
Already done both on oVirt and RHV with external engine, local database.
The old engine and the new one are two vSphere virtual machines.
You can install the new engine based on RH EL 8 with temporary network parameters and then as soon as you have completed the backup of the 4.3 one and copied over it you can shutdown the 4.3 engine server, to keep at a minimum the absence of an engine for the environment that anyway doesn't compromise the workload of your virtual machines.
Of course HA reactions or live migration are not possible in this time frame without an engine.
The restore and the reconfiguration take minutes if you prepare the new engine server in advance.

Read also here for the full details:
https://www.ovirt.org/documentation/upgrade_guide/

HIH,
Gianluca



--
Paul Dyer,
Mercury Consulting Group, RHCE
504-338-8750