Real-time computing. Real-time news.
May 14, 2007
VMware Supporting Cross-Platform Paravirtualization
PALO ALTO, Calif., May 9 -- VMware Inc., the
global leader in software for industry-standard virtualized desktops
and servers, today announced that it is supporting cross-platform
paravirtualization with the open-interface standard paravirt-ops in
VMware Workstation 6, the sixth generation of its desktop
virtualization software product. VMware Workstation 6 became generally
available today and is the first commercially available product to
support paravirt-ops.
Paravirtualized Linux operating systems are modified operating
systems specifically optimized to run in a virtual environment. Unlike
current paravirtualization technologies, paravirt-ops enables
transparent paravirtualization, which allows users to run the same
Linux kernel in paravirtualized mode on a hypervisor as well as on
native hardware. As a result, organizations have to support and
maintain fewer Linux kernels, saving management costs and simplifying
application development.
Paravirt-ops is an open interface developed through a community
process that included collaboration from the Linux community as well
commercial vendors IBM, Red Hat, VMware and XenSource. Paravirt-ops was
included in the latest version of the Linux kernel (version 2.6.20) and
includes support for the VMware VMI interface, which provides a
hypervisor-agnostic paravirtualization interface.
"Interoperability and open interfaces are a major focus for VMware,"
said Dan Chu, vice president of emerging products and markets at
VMware. "VMware support for paravirtualization through the paravirt-ops
interface demonstrates our commitment to working with open communities
such as Linux and with other leading vendors to achieve open
interoperability and optimizations for end users."
"Ubuntu 7.04 is the first Linux distribution to support
paravirt-ops," said Jane Silber, director of operations at Canonical
Ltd., the primary sponsor of Ubuntu. "VMware and the Ubuntu community
have worked closely together to ensure that Linux customers can use a
single operating system for both virtual and physical environments as
well as receive optimal performance and an excellent out-of-box
experience in both environments."
"IBM is excited to see the inclusion of the paravirt-ops
paravirtualization interface in the next version of the Linux kernel,"
said Rich Lechner, vice president of IT optimization and system
software at IBM. "This joint work is designed to make it easier for all
virtualization vendors to work in a Linux environment. As part of this
work, IBM and Canonical have also collaborated on the new Ubuntu
virtual appliance featuring IBM DB2 Express-C for optimized deployment
with supported VMware products."
VMware has contributed to numerous open technology efforts,
including transparent paravirtualization with paravirt-ops as well as
opening up the VMware Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) format for developers
to use free of charge.
About VMware Inc.
VMware, an EMC company, is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. The world's largest companies use VMware solutions to simplify their IT, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands. VMware is based in Palo Alto, Calif. For more information, visit www.vmware.com.
-----
Source: VMware Inc.
Article Tools
Share Options
(Digg, Technorati, more)
