Three strategic virtualization initiatives were the stars of the show as Linux powerhouse Red Hat opened its Red Hat Summit today in Boston. What do the Red Hat moves mean to you? More options in open source virtualization tools and a new open source effort around virtualization security, for starters.
The Red Hat move that will catch the eye of most users is the Embedded Linux Hypervisor, oVirt. This is a lightweight, embeddable hypervisor that currently lets you run Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows VMs (virtual machines) on Linux. What makes this more interesting than just another virtualization announcement: you will be able to carry oVirt-customized VMs from PC to server to what-have-you in your pocket on a USB key drive, Red Hat says.
The open-source oVirt hypervisor, now available as a beta, is based on the KVM project. KVM, in turn, has been an integral part of the Linux kernel since February, 2007. In other words, this is not pie-in-the-sky technology. It’s founded on existing virtualization technologies.