Red Hat, Microsoft deliver on virtualization interop promises

It's more than notable that Red Hat and Microsoft have delivered on some aspects of their cross certification virtualization promises.

Here's what was delivered today (verbatim, from the Red Hat press release), following pledges of both companies last February:

• 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.

And it's not just technical compatibility promised. Both companies' technical support staff are committed to ensuring that mixed workloads really work.

"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," according to the release issued on Wednesday.

I recall a time not too long ago when Novell was the only Linux distro vendor playing ball with Microsoft. Of course, that was when both Linux companies were backing Xen for the long term.

Red Hat's support for KVM -- and becoming the no 1 commercial vendor of KVM -- effectively forced Microsoft to reach out to the other Linux distribution vendor.

But time's are a changing.  Microsoft and Red Hat delivering anything in cooperative fashion is big news and marks more major milestones for interoperability, virtualization and Linux.