After years of hoping to crush Linux, Microsoft is trying to show it can get along with its open-source rival.
Microsoft Corp. is living up to its promise to reach out and build bridges with Linux and open-source community, said it is teaming up with Linux supplier XenSource to allow computers to run the upcoming version of Microsoft’s Windows server operating system on computers that are simultaneously running Linux software.
In the latest sign that it is dropping its resistance to Linux, Microsoft of Redmond, Washington is teaming up with Palo Alto, California-based XenSource to compete with VMware, now the biggest supplier of so-called “virtualization” software.
VMware, based in Palo Alto, is a unit of EMC Corp. and helped pioneer the market in which computers can be used to simultaneously run multiple operating systems.
The software maker is announcing a partnership that will make sure its next virtualization technology can run versions of Linux that have been adapted for a different, open-source virtualization foundation called Xen. It is linking up with commercial software maker XenSource to offer joint development and support for the two technologies, which take a similar approach.
The move means that when the technology is available, those enterprise customers deploying Novell’s SuSE Linux or Red Hat Linux, would have two world-class virtualization solutions built to take advantage of all the things that Linux has to offer, along with the assurances around that, said Bob Muglia, the senior vice president for servers and tools at Microsoft, ahead of the announcement.
“What Microsoft and XenSource are committing to, effectively, is building a bridge” between the two tools, said Jeff Price, a senior director in Microsoft’s Windows Server group.
Both are based on the notion of a hyper-visor–that is, low-level software that lets multiple operating systems share the same hardware. An operating system must be adapted for Xen to run best on the hyper-visor. However, features in new processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices let unmodified operating systems, such as Windows, run on Xen. The Microsoft-XenSource collaboration is designed to return the compliment, letting Linux adapted for Xen also run on Microsoft’s hyper-visor.
Enterprise customers want Microsoft to drive the industry forward, and one of the areas they care about is interoperability with their existing systems, from those that are legacy and proprietary to those running Linux.
So, we are looking at ways where we can do a great job of interoperating with those other environments. Virtualization is an important trend in the industry as well as a specific area where there are great opportunities for interoperability because of the ability for an operating system such as Windows, with the virtualization technology we are building in, to support Linux in a very native and high-performance way," Muglia said.
Microsoft also recognized the fundamental trend in the server industry toward an industry standard architecture and away from a proprietary architecture, and as that happened, both Windows and Linux will be beneficiaries, he said.
"But, moving forward, as our hyper-visor [code-named Viridian] and virtualization technology in Windows Server gets done, that has deep strategic long-term importance for us, and it is important that we be able to run Linux in an extremely performant and world-class way," he said.
While Microsoft’s Virtual Server runs Linux “effectively,” it is not run in a world-class way.
It is slated to be shipped within six months of Longhorn Server, the operating system update set for delivery at the end of 2007. A beta, or test, version of Viridian is scheduled to be ready by the close of 2006, Microsoft said.
When Microsoft said Viridian would not ship at the outset with Longhorn Server, some expected that meant it would arrive with Service Pack 1, due at least 18 months later, in 2009. But Microsoft indicated in April it wanted to release Viridian sooner.
“Customers have been very positive about that,” Price said. “Customers want to have assurances that they can run Linux in a supportive and high-performance manner.”
Linux has taken a specific, technical track toward virtualization, known as para-virtualization, wherein the implementation of the operating system, Linux, enables high performance virtualization, he said.
Frank Artale, the vice president of business development at XenSource, told eWEEK that Xen is being incorporated into Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform, as well as in upcoming enterprise Red Hat Linux releases, and said that, from a technical perspective, Linux has a protocol through which it talks to the Xen hyper-visor.
"One of the significant pieces of the work we are doing is to provide an adapter between the Xen hypercall API and the Microsoft Windows Server virtualization hypercall API, so there will be adaptation to allow existing Linux implementations that are Xen enabled to run on the Longhorn Server that has been enabled with Viridian," he said.
The arrangement comes as virtualization, or using one computer to act as many, takes center stage for the software industry. There is increasing interest in having a single PC or server run many different operating systems, rather than one operating system. The shift is bringing profound technological and business model challenges to software companies.
Under the new deal, Microsoft will work with XenSource to provide support for customers using Xen with Windows Server’s hyper-visor. If there are problems, they can call Microsoft.
Microsoft and XenSource said in a joint statement that they will cooperate on the development of technology that makes their respective "virtualization" software programs work side-by-side on the same computer.
"If it is a problem with the Windows hyper-visor, we will fix it," Price said. If it is a Linux or Xen issue, he said, Microsoft will "make sure they get the right Linux support."
As a result of the collaboration, the next version of Windows Server, code-named "Longhorn," will provide customers with a virtualization system that promises to help run both Windows and Linux on the same machine more cost-effectively.
Also, specific optimizations will be added to optimize Linux performance as it runs on top of Longhorn Server in the form of drivers to enable specific forms of I/O partitions, in particular network and disk I/O, Artale said.
XenSource has been doing some internal research and design work around this over the past six months based on public disclosure from Microsoft around Viridian. The collaboration announced earlier this month would enable this to progress to the next level, he said.
There is also a common heritage between Viridian and Xen in terms of design, he said, adding that this joint product release would be timed to coincide with the Windows server virtualization release of Longhorn Server, which is "on Microsoft’s schedule."
For XenSource, the deal opens up the option of creating software that works with both Windows and Linux hyper-visors.
"It really is about providing a much larger market for the products and services that we want to build, products that have become possible via the broad adoption of virtualization," said Artale.
While Muglia declined to comment on how the technology developed between Microsoft and XenSource would be made available, he did say the goal was to make it "very competitive and appropriate."
No final decision has been made on how this joint technology would be licensed, but Microsoft Is committed to making it available very broadly, Muglia said, adding that "this technology is certainly not being developed under the GPL, and there are multiple ways we can bring this type of technology to market and partner with XenSource and others in the open source community to make it broadly available."
While Artale conceded that this link-up would draw some attention in the open-source community, it is important to realize that successful open-source companies are based on use value, which implies broad adoption and demand.
"There is no better reward for any software developer than having a rich base of potential users and that is one of the reasons we at XenSource are doing this," he said, adding that the open community should feel great that an API that they developed is broadly available on every platform available.
The move was also a recognition from Microsoft that it is competing in a market where Linux and open-source software are a serious player.