Red Hat's KVM-based virtualization platform moves into beta testing

It was a big day for Xen and a big day for the other open source virtualizatio hypervisor as well.

Red Hat's KVM-based virtualization platform -- including a standalone hypervisor,  virtualization manager for servers and virtualization manager for the desktop -- moved into beta testing on Tuesday.

In February, the Linux leader detailed plans to release from mid 2009 to late 2010 this set of virtualization products based upon the KVM hypervisor, which is integrated directly into the Linux operating system. It is not clear if any of these products will actually ship in mid 2009, which was the original plan.

Red Hat and its rival Novell have supported Xen -- the first popular open source virtualization hypervsior -- fo several years. Novell continues to support Xen while Red Hat is opting to migrate its user base over time to KVM. The Raleigh, NC company said it will continue to support the Xen technology in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 for the foreseeable future but identified KVM as the hypervisor of choice for future versions of its leading Linux.  Red Hat broadcast its intent when it acquired Qumranet, the first major commercial desktop virtualization company that embraced KVM.

On Tuesday, Xen sponsor Citrix -- which acquired the open source XenSource company two years ago -- announced shipment of XenServer 5.5. Citrix partners closely with Microsoft and like the XenSource company it acquired has worked to enable significant interoperability between Xen and Microsoft's Hyper-V.