Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows Complete Virtualization Interoperability. What does this mean to enterprise customers?

Customers are now able to deploy heterogeneous virtualization environments comprising Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux with full technical support available from both companies.

Validation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, using the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor with:

Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Certification of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 host with:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4 guests.

Customers with valid support agreements receive cooperative technical support for:

running Windows Server operating system virtualized on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, and

running Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

Validations are posted to the respective Microsoft and Red Hat web sites:

http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compatibility/hardware/

http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp.aspx

The interesting part of this agreement concerns the coordinated technical support for Microsoft and Red Hat’s mutual customers using server virtualization, and the activities included in these agreements do not require the sharing of IP. Therefore, the agreements do not include any patent or open source licensing rights, and additionally contain no financial clauses, other than industry-standard certification/validation testing fees.