Open Virtualization Alliance Formed

A consortium of tech companies announced the formation of the Open Virtualization Alliance Tuesday to foster the adoption of open virtualization technologies, including Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM).  Founding companies include HP (HPQ), IBM, Intel (INTC), BMC Software (BMC), Red Hat (RHT), Eucalyptus Systems and SUSE.

Complementing Open Source

The aim of the alliance will be to provide education, best practices and technical advice to businesses, while complementing open source communities that are managing the development of the KVM hypervisor and associated management capabilities.  They will also encourage interoperability and accelerate the expansion of the ecosystem of third party solutions around KVM.  Around since 2007 KVM virtualization uses support built into Intel and AMD processors to enable a robust, efficient environment for hosting Linux and Windows virtual machines.

A Common Goal

Members of the Open Virtualization Alliance share a common interest in cultivating open virtualization, as it gives their clients the choice to match their business needs with the ideal virtualization products. HP, IBM and Red Hat hold many of the records for the SPECvirt_sc2010 benchmark, which measures the end-to-end performance of all system components including the hardware, virtualization platform, and the virtualized guest operating system and application software.

“When one company dominates an industry, innovation suffers, and customers pay the price,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager, Cloud Business at Red Hat. “Red Hat and the open source community are breaking the stranglehold of closed virtualization, enabling better performance, scalability, security -- and better economics. We’re pleased to see momentum continue to build, changing the virtualization market just as we did with closed operating systems and enterprise middleware.”

"Organizations are looking to quickly and easily manage change across the enterprise while maintaining control over IT resources,” said Paul Miller, vice president, Solutions and Strategic Alliances, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP. “Kernel Based Virtual Machines, supported by the Open Virtualization Alliance, offer organizations flexibility, choice and compatibility with HP Converged Infrastructure. They’re a great open source option for clients.”

The Open Virtualization Alliance was announced at the Open Source Business Conference being held in San Francisco May 16 and 17.