XenSource Partnership Deepens

XenSource, a developer of virtualization solutions for Linux, has deepened its partnership with Microsoft. The two companies agreed to share information and develop code that will enhance the performance of Xen-enabled versions of Linux when running as guest operating systems under the upcoming hypervisor-based Windows Virtualization technology (which will be offered within six months of the ship date of Windows Longhorn Server, expected by the end of 2007). The new software will enable virtual machines (VMs) running Xen Linux to be portable between Windows Longhorn servers and servers running Xen’s hypervisor-based XenEnterprise OS without incurring a performance penalty.

Providing this level of portability and performance requires both a common file format for storing virtual machines on disk and an API translation layer for Xen-enabled Linux VMs to run on Longhorn Server. Xen has already licensed Microsoft’s Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) file format and will use it for Xen VMs. As part of the new partnership, XenSource has committed to writing the second piece, the API translation layer, for the Windows hypervisor. Given identical hardware, this code will allow Xen VMs to run with similar performance under either the Windows or XenEnterprise hosts.