Open Virtualization Advances into the Enterprise with Red Hat And IBM

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that they are working together to make products and solutions based on KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) technology the open virtualization choice for the enterprise. Together, the companies are driving adoption of the open source virtualization technology through joint development projects and enablement of the KVM ecosystem.

KVM open source virtualization technology allows a business to create multiple virtual versions of Linux and Windows environments on the same server. KVM-based products and solutions, incorporating comprehensive management capabilities and scaling from local servers to large public clouds, help businesses save money by consolidating and sharing IT resources without the expense and limitations of a proprietary solution. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, designed to enable pervasive datacenter virtualization, combines a centralized virtualization management system with advanced features as well as a KVM-based hypervisor.

As more organizations turn to virtualization to consolidate IT resources and reduce expenses, the open approach to virtualization is proving beneficial. Large enterprise clients are already seeing the benefits of solutions that combine IBM hardware and software with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, using KVM technology. Two joint customers, the Brazilian Federal Highway Police (DPRF) and Cortal Consors, a division of BNP Paribas, have both experienced significant benefits by deploying Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization on IBM System x servers.

"After trying four different solutions available in the market, Red Hat offered us just what we needed to build our virtualized system,” said Lourival Filho at the Brazilian Federal Highway Police (DPRF). "In the final results, it offered us energy saving, easier management of assets and more availability for services. Compared to proprietary solutions, we saved more than 80% in the overall cost. Additionally, the Red Hat support team was very proactive, giving us support related to the general system situation, including minor details not related directly to Red Hat’s solution.”

"After deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we expanded our Red Hat deployment even further with the adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization on IBM X3850. Since deploying Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and IBM for our Banking Applications, we've achieved high levels of scalability, performance and reliability. We believe that Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a truly high-performance virtualization technology, which fully exceeds our needs,” said Anja Schaffer at Cortal Consors, a division of BNP Paribas.

Recent technology advances led by IBM and Red Hat have lowered the barrier to virtualization adoption in the enterprise through:

• Improved Performance: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization delivers 45% better consolidation capacity than its competitors according to a recent virtualization benchmark test submitted to Spec¹. This will allow businesses to consolidate servers and virtualize more of their critical applications without compromising on performance.
• Scalability: KVM-based products such as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization automatically inherit the scalability of Linux, which is proven in the largest scale, mission-critical datacenters. This includes support for today’s modern server systems, with architectural support up to 4,096 processor cores and up to 64TB of memory in the host and 32 vCPUs in the guest and 1 TB of RAM, and exceeds the abilities of other proprietary hypervisors for Linux and Windows. This enables clients to fully exploit today’s biggest x86-based servers for virtualization while allowing for future growth.
• Advanced security: In products such as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, KVM is coupled with the well-proven SELinux security infrastructure, which was developed in conjunction with the US National Security Agency. SELinux, a kernel-based security policy enforcement infrastructure, supports Mandatory Access Control and provides an additional level of virtual server security over and above that of competing products. This two-layer security is a vital advantage in both private clouds and in public, multi-tenant environments where the prospect of hostile tenants must be considered. In addition, IBM and Red Hat are working together to achieve Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation at EAL 4+ level, a security assurance defined by the US National Security Agency.
• Reduced Costs: For businesses already using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 and later operating system, KVM is included. That coupled with a centralized management system like Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager can help enterprises save up to 80% relative to comparable proprietary virtualization solutions in the first year (initial acquisition cost) and up to 66% over a course of three years. To easily calculate expected savings for using the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization platform, visit Red Hat’s TCO calculator: https://roianalyst.alinean.com/redhat/rhev/.

An Evolutionary Path to Cloud Computing

Recent advances in the security, performance and scalability of products and solutions based on KVM technology have made it a natural choice for cloud providers. The security capabilities support multi-tenant safety in the cloud, the scalability advantages of KVM enables even the largest application to be virtualized, and the performance allows higher densities of virtual machines per physical server. Coupled with lower costs, cloud providers are able to offer their services with a higher quality of service, at a more attractive price point to their clients.

Building The Ecosystem

IBM and Red Hat are working to develop the KVM systems management ecosystem, to further encourage the adoption of open virtualization. Planned areas of collaboration include increasing the scope and adoption of the Red Hat Virtualization Management APIs, and building a community to encourage the use of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager APIs by third-party virtualization products.

Joint Development

Together, the companies will also drive adoption of the open source virtualization technology through jointly developing key virtualization and cloud management interfaces and using the APIs in their respective management products, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager, IBM Director and Tivoli software. The APIs will address cloud, datacenter automation, virtual storage and networking, virtualization security and virtual appliance management.

"Red Hat and IBM have worked together for over a decade with a reputation for offering our customers high-value choices for their infrastructures. We believe that open source virtualization solutions give our partners freedom from lock in and the ability to take advantage of the rapid innovation that the open source model enables,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager, Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat. "Through KVM, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization offers compelling benefits, such as performance and scalability, to customers.”

"The recent enhancements to the security, reliability and performance of KVM have made it a compelling choice for enterprises looking for the flexibility of an open standards-based virtualization option,” said Jean Staten, director of Linux at IBM. "Together with Red Hat we will continue to drive KVM enterprise adoption enabling businesses of all sizes to benefit from open virtualization.”

For more information about Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, visit www.redhat.com/rhev.

For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions and an S&P 500 company, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for seven consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with virtualization, applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.

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¹ Spec Report: http://www.spec.org/virt_sc2010/results/specvirt_sc2010_perf.html