Red Hat's Virtualization Game Plan Looks Like A Winner

Red Hat Enterprise Linux isn't just for enterprise users. And neither are the virtualization tools baked into Red Hat's latest release.On Wednesday, Red Hat unveiled a major update to its Enterprise Linux platform. RHEL 5.4 It offers a long list of new and improved features, but at first glance, many of them don't look terribly relevant for small and midsized companies.

Support for things like InfiniBand and IBM System z mainframe processors are a real boost for RHEL in the datacenter. But is there any joy here for companies with more modest IT infrastructures?

Yes, there is. RHEL 5.4 includes a host of new virtualization features that should interest any company managing Linux-based servers with a limited pool of IT resources. There are also additional changes on the horizon that could make the process of deploying virtualized desktop environments much easier.

As this InformationWeek story notes, Red Hat is hedging its bets by incorporating a new virtualization platform in RHEL 5.4. Previously, the company had put its full backing behind Xen, an open-source initiative that is also supported by Sun and Citrix. Now, however, it is turning to a different hypervisor platform, the Kernel-based Virtual Machine.

As the name suggests, KVM is actually integrated with the Linux kernel; when called, it loads a module that turns the kernel itself into a hypervisor. As a result, a Linux kernel running KVM functions, in practice, as a "bare metal" hypervisor.

This approach delivers some obvious performance advantages, including access to the Linux kernel's memory management and scheduler. It also allows virtualized RHEL instances to look and function exactly they would in non-virtualized form, a fact that simplifies the process of managing VMs quite a bit easier.

(Looking for a crash course in virtualization technology on Linux? In addition to the IBM DeveloperWorks article I cite above, check out this piece for some great background information.

Yet this just scratches the surface. Red Hat has big plans for KVM, and that includes extending its reach to the desktop.

When Red Hat acquired Qumranet, the Israeli-based company that drove development of KVM, it got some other goodies, as well. One of these was Qumranet's Solid ICE, a technology that allows remote, Web-based access to a virtualized desktop OS. Solid ICE also supports Preboot Execution Environment (PXE), making it a great option for serving up virtualized desktop OSes.

Red Hat will also launch a stand-alone version of the KVM hypervisor and a set of open-source virtualization management tools later this year.

The virtualization market isn't just crowded; it's downright suffocating. And some people are already writing off KVM due to the fact that its competitors already own the commanding heights: VMware is, well, VMware, and Xen can lean on its relationship with Amazon EC2.

(The latter should get interesting, since Amazon uses Xen on Red Hat. Yet Red Hat has, in essence, decided that Xen is destined to suffer second-class citizenship on RHEL.)

Do not, however, discount the value Red Hat can deliver by integrating KVM, SolidICE, and a set of integrated management tools. If server-based virtualization is part of your company's long-term IT strategy, this is the sort of move that could have a huge impact on your technology purchasing decisions.