Red Hat outlines virtualization road map

IDG News Service - Linux vendor Red Hat Inc. is integrating Xen virtualization technologies into the next version of its Linux operating system and working with partners to ease virtualization deployment, said the company Tuesday at an event in San Francisco.

Red Hat will provide a preview of these virtualization technologies with the release of Fedora Core 5 this month. The company will soon release a beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux with integrated virtualization capabilities and will roll out services around virtualization migration, assessment and planning. By the end of the year, it will release Version 5 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux with the virtualization capabilities.

"Virtualization is not new; it goes all the way back to the mainframe, but what is new is the movement of open-source technologies based on Xen into Linux open-source platforms," said Tim Yeaton, Red Hat's executive vice president of enterprise solutions, at the event, which was webcast.

The Raleigh, N.C.-based company also said it is working to help users ease virtualization throughout the IT stack with partners such as chip makers Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Intel Corp., storage vendors including Network Appliance Inc., as well as with the creator of the Xen open-source project, XenSource Inc.

Better utilization of hardware, reduced power consumption and lower system management costs are just a few of the business drivers for virtualized environments, Yeaton said.

Red Hat rival Novell Inc. is also building virtualization capabilities into its enterprise Linux offering, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.