Red Hat Announces it's kinda Interoperable, sort of, maybe?

[Reuven Cohen]

In a rather lack luster announcement today Red Hat has indicated they have signed a reciprocal agreement with Microsoft to enable increased "interoperability" for the companies' virtualization platforms. Both companies said that they would offer a joint virtualization validation/certification program that will provide coordinated technical support for their mutual server virtualization customers.

Is it just me or does this Red Hat Interop announcement seem a little misguided? Digging a little deep it appears that Red Hat and Microsoft don't fully grasp what Interoperability actually is or more to the point who it benefits. But rather they seem to taking advantage of the buzz that interoperability has enjoyed in 2009. So now rather then slapping a "cloud" logo on your product, you slap an interoperable logo on there too.

Back to the announcement,

• Red Hat will validate Windows Server guests to be supported on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization technologies.
• Microsoft will validate Red Hat Enterprise Linux server guests to be supported on Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
• Once each company completes testing, customers with valid support agreements will receive coordinated technical support for running Windows Server operating system virtualized on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization, and for running Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualized on Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

My question to Red Hat is since when does certification and technical support count as interoperability? Making this all the more confusing is there was no mention of Red Hat's actual interoperability efforts which traditionally have focused on it's open source systems management API called LibVirt.

In case you're not familar with LibVirt, it is a toolkit incubated under Red Hat's Emerging Technology projects group. The goal of the API is to create an interoperable systems API which serves as central point of interaction with the virtualization capabilities of recent versions of Linux (and other OSes). Among it's various features the API also acts as a CIM provider for the DMTF virtualization schema as well as a QMF agent for the AMQP/QPid messaging system. Libvirt is free and available under the GNU Lesser General Public License.

Up until today it appeared that Red Hat was ready to lead the interoperability effort, this announcement puts some doubt if this is actual a true motivation of the company. If Red Hat is serious about being interoperable, they must do more be MS certified. Partners and customers are smart enough to read beyond press releases. Action speaks louder then words and Red Hat must actually take steps to enable an interoperability cross vendor environment. The most logical first step is to provide direct support for Microsoft with in Libvirt. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Come on Red Hat we expected more from you.

Original Post > http://www.elasticvapor.com/2009/02/red-hat-announces-its-kinda.html
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Reuven Cohen
CCIF Instigator
www.cloudforum.org
 
Open Source Cloud Computing > www.enomaly.com

[JP Morgenthal]

Reuven,

I see your point. However, I believe there is some
interoperability to be had in ensuring that each of these operating
systems work properly as a guest on each of these hosts. Although, I
agree that this seems more like a marketing ploy than an honest
attempt to provide transparency in usage, which I would not expect big
vendors like this to support easily.

JP

[Michael Richardson]

So, libvirt was created to abstract between VMware and XEN.

That was so that Redhat could stop internal arguing: internal people to
RH much prefer the GPL'ed (open source) XEN (also used by Amazon) and/or
KVM, while marketing would rather be friendly with VMware.

I see from the web page that libvirt doesn't do VMware as yet!
Perhaps there is another layer inside RH for that.

Read the announcement for what it is:
a) if you call Microsoft with problems with your 2008 server
running under "Red Hat Enterprise virtualization" (is that XEN
or KVM or VMware? I wonder...) they won't hangup.

b) if you call Redhat with problems with your RHEL5 system running
under Hyper-V, they won't hangup.

That's all.
I agree that we need three or four more steps here.

--
] Y'avait une poule de jammé dans l'muffler!!!!!!!!! | firewalls [
] Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON |net architect[
] m...@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another Debian GNU/Linux using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [

[Mark A. Carlson]

I'd have to agree - this is just "interoperability" as a buzzword.

-- mark

Michael Richardson wrote:

So, libvirt was created to abstract between VMware and XEN.

That was so that Redhat could stop internal arguing: internal people to
RH much prefer the GPL'ed (open source) XEN (also used by Amazon) and/or
KVM, while marketing would rather be friendly with VMware. 

I see from the web page that libvirt doesn't do VMware as yet!
Perhaps there is another layer inside RH for that.

Read the announcement for what it is:
     a) if you call Microsoft with problems with your 2008 server
	running under "Red Hat Enterprise virtualization" (is that XEN
	or KVM or VMware? I wonder...) they won't hangup.

     b) if you call Redhat with problems with your RHEL5 system running
	under Hyper-V, they won't hangup.

That's all.
I agree that we need three or four more steps here.


  

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Mark A. Carlson Sr. Architect Systems Group Phone x69559 / 303-223-6139 Email Mark.C...@Sun.COM

[Alejandro Espinoza]

Reuven,

I think for the time being the announcement is a marketing gig. I do think there is some honest backing and there are actual parties in both sides trying to get interop between the two companies. But just look at how these two companies behave and you'll see that RedHat is not really Microsoft-friendly. It has never been. Technologically speaking they are friendly, because they have to, but to a certain point. 

RedHat attacked Novell a lot when they signed the deal with Microsoft, and even that deal doesn't promise full interop between what Novell offers and Microsoft's offering but it is  a step. I think the same is happening with RedHat. They are trying to get the full advantage of REAL interop with Microsoft offerings, but it is just politically difficult, specially for RedHat since they have been so active against Microsoft.

I think we should celebrate this announcement for now and hope for the best (that deal survives and its details target a fuller interop strategy). We, the users, are here to gain.

Regards,

Alex.

--
Alex Espinoza | Axis Technical Group | Software Development Manager
714-491-2636 office | 714-470-7125 cell | aesp...@axistechnical.com | www.axistechnical.com

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