Linux News Desk

XenSource announced XenEnterprise for Windows and Linux, the market's first commercially-packaged Xen virtualization solution supporting both Microsoft Windows and Linux guests. XenEnterprise includes the latest version of the Xen hypervisor, Xen 3.0.3, which has been developed collaboratively by the Xen ecosystem. XenEnterprise now delivers the performance, security and openness of the Xen hypervisor for x86 server virtualization of multiple operating systems, including Windows and Linux, and is delivered in a form factor that emphasizes ease of use, simple deployment of the Xen hypervisor and guest virtual servers, and the ability to install and manage multiple guests on the same server. With a comprehensive management and monitoring console, XenEnterprise comes at an affordable price tag to encourage rapid adoption of Xen server virtualization.

"For Windows and Linux IT professionals XenEnterprise delivers virtualization for Windows and Linux today in a high performance, easy to use, affordable and supported commercial product," said John Bara, vice president of marketing at XenSource. "Unlike competing products, we don't believe the cost of the virtualization software should exceed the cost of the server. XenEnterprise is the fastest and easiest way to deploy the market leading Xen hypervisor for Windows and Linux."

The announcement of the availability of XenEnterprise comes on the heels of Microsoft and XenSource's recent strategic announcement to collaborate on the development of interoperable virtualization solutions, focused on the support of Xen-enabled Linux guests and the future Microsoft Server Windows "Longhorn" Hypervisor. XenEnterprise leverages the key innovation of Xen -- paravirtualization -- to deliver near "bare metal" performance to virtualized guest operating systems. It allows customers to immediately realize cost savings resulting from server consolidation and increased utilization, in combination with the new power of Intel VT and AMD-V hardware virtualization.

"Customers with mixed IT environments, such as open source and commercial software, expect it all to work together," said Bill Hilf, general manager of platform strategy at Microsoft Corp. "Microsoft and XenSource are collaborating to enhance interoperability for our mutual customers. Our customers with Premier-level support agreements running Windows within XenEnterprise, or other non-Microsoft virtualization software, can look to Microsoft for commercially reasonable efforts to investigate potential interoperability issues."

"Virtualization has become an important tool to help clients reduce their cost of ownership and increase the availability and resiliency of their infrastructure," said Rich Lechner, vice president, IBM Virtualization. "Virtualization also empowers clients with greater flexibility, and XenEnterprise represents an important new option. Virtualization adds significant enterprise capabilities to the x86 server environment, and IBM delivers the management solutions to harness them."

"Red Hat has collaborated with XenSource and the open source community to deliver technology for cross platform server virtualization," said Tim Yeaton, senior vice president of Enterprise Solutions at Red Hat. "This community-driven innovation solves customer problems in heterogeneous environments, making interoperability easier, thus reducing customers' costs and improving their productivity. Virtualization is an excellent example of the rapid innovation which results from open standards and collaborative development, and Red Hat is committed to continued support of the open source Xen hypervisor and to compatibility between Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and XenEnterprise."