At the Red Hat Summit, Red Hat and IBM announced that they are working together to make products and solutions based on KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) technology the open virtualization choice for the enterprise. Together, the companies are driving adoption of the open source virtualization technology through joint development projects and enablement of the KVM ecosystem.
KVM open source virtualization technology allows a business to create multiple virtual versions of Linux and Windows environments on the same server. KVM-based products and solutions, incorporating comprehensive management capabilities and scaling from local servers to large public clouds, help businesses save money by consolidating and sharing IT resources without the expense and limitations of a proprietary solution. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, designed to enable pervasive data center virtualization, combines a centralized virtualization management system with advanced features as well as a KVM-based hypervisor.
Recent technology advances led by IBM and Red Hat have lowered the barrier to virtualization adoption in the enterprise through improved performance, scalability, advanced security, and reduced costs. IBM and Red Hat are working to develop the KVM systems management ecosystem, to further encourage the adoption of open virtualization. Planned areas of collaboration include increasing the scope and adoption of the Red Hat Virtualization Management APIs, and building a community to encourage the use of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager APIs by third-party virtualization products.
The companies will also drive adoption of the open source virtualization technology through jointly developing key virtualization and cloud management interfaces and using the APIs in their respective management products, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager, IBM Director and Tivoli software. The APIs will address cloud, data center automation, virtual storage and networking, virtualization security and virtual appliance management.
"Red Hat and IBM have worked together for over a decade with a reputation for offering our customers high-value choices for their infrastructures. We believe that open source virtualization solutions give our partners freedom from lock in and the ability to take advantage of the rapid innovation that the open source model enables," said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager, Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat. "Through KVM, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization offers compelling benefits, such as performance and scalability, to customers."
"The recent enhancements to the security, reliability and performance of KVM have made it a compelling choice for enterprises looking for the flexibility of an open standards-based virtualization option," added Jean Staten, director of Cross-IBM Linux and Open Virtualization. "Together with Red Hat we will continue to drive KVM enterprise adoption enabling businesses of all sizes to benefit from open virtualization."
For more information about Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, visit www.redhat.com/rhev.
For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.