Red Hat and IBM have announced a new partnership to work together to make products based on KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) technology. Together, the companies are driving adoption of the open source virtualisation technology through joint development projects and enablement of the KVM ecosystem, officials of the two companies said. KVM is the open virtualisation choice for the enterprise. This agreement was announced at the Red Hat Summit being held in Boston.

Open Virtualised Linux And Windows Servers

KVM virtualisation technology enables users to create multiple virtual versions of Linux and Windows environments on the same server. KVM-based products and solutions, incorporating management capabilities and scaling from local servers to large public clouds, help organisations save money by consolidating and sharing IT resources. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation, designed to enable pervasive data centre virtualisation, combines a centralised virtualisation management system with advanced features as well as a KVM-based hypervisor. Together, IBM and Red Hat will drive adoption of the KVM technology through jointly developing key virtualisation and cloud management interfaces and using the APIs in their respective management products, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation Manager, IBM Director and Tivoli software. The APIs will address cloud, data centre automation, virtual storage and networking, virtualisation security and virtual appliance management, the companies said “Red Hat and IBM have worked together for over a decade with a reputation for offering our customers high-value choices for their infrastructures,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager of the Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat, in a statement. “We believe that open source virtualisation solutions give our partners freedom from lock in and the ability to take advantage of the rapid innovation that the open source model enables. Through KVM, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation 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 virtualisation option,” said Jean Staten, director of Linux at IBM, also in a statement. “Together with Red Hat we will continue to drive KVM enterprise adoption enabling businesses of all sizes to benefit from open virtualisation.”

Customers Reaping Benefits

As more organisations turn to virtualisation to consolidate IT resources and reduce expenses, the open approach to virtualisation is proving beneficial. Large enterprise clients are already seeing the benefits of solutions that combine IBM hardware and software with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation, using KVM technology, IBM and Red Hat officials said. Two joint customers, the Brazilian Federal Highway Police (DPRF) and Cortal Consors, a division of BNP Paribas, have both experienced significant benefits by deploying Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation on IBM System x servers. “After trying four different solutions available in the market, Red Hat offered us just what we needed to build our virtualised system,” said Lourival Filho at the Brazilian Federal Highway Police (DPRF), in a statement. “In the final results, it offered us energy saving, easier management of assets and more availability for services. Compared to proprietary solutions, we saved more than 80 percent in the overall cost. Additionally, the Red Hat support team was very proactive, giving us support related to the general system situation, including minor details not related directly to Red Hat’s solution.” "After deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we expanded our Red Hat deployment even further with the adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation on IBM X3850,” said Anja Schaffer at Cortal Consors, a division of BNP Paribas, in a statement. “Since deploying Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation and IBM for our Banking Applications, we've achieved high levels of scalability, performance and reliability. We believe that Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a truly high-performance virtualisation technology, which fully exceeds our needs.” Recent advances in the security, performance and scalability of products and solutions based on KVM technology have made it a natural choice for cloud providers, Red Hat said. The security capabilities support multitenant safety in the cloud, the scalability advantages of KVM enables even the largest application to be virtualised, and the performance allows higher densities of virtual machines per physical server. Coupled with lower costs, cloud providers are able to offer their services with a higher quality of service, at a more attractive price point to their clients.

Management Ecosystem

IBM and Red Hat also are working to develop the KVM systems management ecosystem, to further encourage the adoption of open virtualisation. Planned areas of collaboration include increasing the scope and adoption of the Red Hat Virtualisation Management APIs, and building a community to encourage the use of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation Manager APIs by third-party virtualisation products. Meanwhile, Red Hat also announced momentum for the adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation by North American channel partners as part of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation Accelerator Programme. Launched in June 2010, the Programme has driven the adoption of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation portfolio through training and support of virtualisation-certified Red Hat channel partners.