Companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, Intel and Red Hat have come together to form an open virtualisation group that will work to accelerate the adoption of an open-source virtualisation stack based on the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor.
KVM open source virtualisation technology allows a business to create multiple virtual versions of Linux and Windows environments on the same server. KVM-based products and offerings help businesses save money by consolidating and sharing IT resources as they look to deploy new hardware and software.
The Open Virtualisation Alliance, which aims to promote interoperability in virtualised environments, has BMC Software, Eucalyptus Systems, Novell and Suse as other members. (Vmware is not part of the group.)
The group will educate companies on best practices and also offer technical help.
The decision by the companies to form an alliance was announced at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco.
Intel, HP, Red Hat, IBM, and Novell spoke about the new group and its objectives at the conference.
The open virtualisation alliance is an idea which started with IBM and Red Hat.
Earlier this month, Red Hat and IBM had announced a collaboration between them to make products and offerings based on KVM technology, an open virtualisation choice for the enterprise.
Director of Linux at IBM Jean Staten had then said, "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."
