VMware Offers Free Code, Targets Virtualization Standard

VMware, a unit of EMC, announced Monday that several industry leaders ranging from processor manufacturers AMD and Intel to software providers Novel and Red Hat have signed on to its standardization concept. The partnership also includes BEA Systems, BMC Software, Broadcom, Cisco, Computer Associates International, Dell, Emulex, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Mellanox, and Qlogic as well as additional companies expected to sign on later.

Conspicuous by its absence was Microsoft, the industry standard bearer, which has been positioning its 2003 acquisition Connectex as its entry into the virtualization universe.

Raghu Raghuram, VMware&'s senior director of strategy and market development, said Microsoft would be welcomed in the collaboration. “We intend to reach out to Microsoft as well,” he said. “This is intended to be a completely open standard. We want Microsoft in this.”

“We look forward to this next phase of increased partner collaboration,” said VMware president Diane Greene in a statement, “and believe it is the best possible way to give customers the ability to realize the full potential of the x86 virtualization layer.” The company said it has created a program called VMware Community Source that will provide its partners with ESX Server source code and interfaces.

id
unit-1659132512259
type
Sponsored post

A key element of the cooperative arrangement will be an effort to create open hypervisor standards. VMware defines them as the “foundational component of virtual infrastructure (that) enable computer system partitioning.”

VMware said it will kick off the effort by contributing its Virtual Machine Hypervisor Interfaces (VMHI). The VMware ESX Server source code will be distributed via royalty-free licenses.

Raghuram, noting that the collaboration members have been working together, said the partnership had already published two of the three interfaces. He expects server usage to emerge initially as the more dominant usage than desktop usage. One aspect of the collaboration that sets it apart, Raghuram said, is that VMware believes its partners will contribute heavily to the effort.