Microsoft, Red Hat Expand Virtual Server Interoperability Support

Red Hat and Microsoft on Wednesday said the two companies now support each other's virtualization environments, helping smooth interoperability between Microsoft Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux in virtual environments.

The move follows a February agreement between Red Hat and Microsoft under which the two companies said they would validate and support each other's virtualization and operating system platforms to expand interoperability between them.

The two companies said on Wednesday that they have completed testing and validation for mutual server virtualization customers, and are now providing such customers joint support in virtual environments.

In particular, Red Hat has validated its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 with the Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor able to work with Windows Server 2003, 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual server instances.

Microsoft, for its part, has certified its Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 hosts to work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 guests.

In addition, the two vendors said any Microsoft applications certified to work on Windows server and Red Hat products certified to work on Red Hat Enterprise Linux also are supported in joint virtual environments.

Mike Neil, general manager of Windows Server and server virtualization at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post on the Microsoft site that both companies have certain applications that receive technical support on certified server virtualization software. For instance, he wrote that customers can run JBoss Enterprise Middleware within a virtual machine guest on Hyper-V and receive coordinated technical support.

He also linked to a long list of Microsoft applications that receive that same support, which can be read here.

The new agreement with Red Hat continues Microsoft's nascent relationship with Linux and the open community that really got its start in July when Microsoft submitted three Linux device drivers to the Linux community in an effort to optimize the performance of Linux virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

The agreement also is in keeping with Microsoft's cross-virtualization support with Citrix. Citrix, a long-term Microsoft partner, acquired XenSource, the developer of the open source KVM hypervisor on which its XenServer server virtualization technology is based.

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