Microsoft opens up virtualization specs

By Stan Beer
Wednesday, 18 October 2006 06:51

Home IT

Microsoft has moved to be seen to embrace the cooperative spirit of virtualization, which enables servers to run multiple operating systems, by making its virtualization specifications freely available.

In an announcement yesterday, Microsoft said that it expects the virtualization market to grow dramatically in line with the increasing power of computers. Therefore by making the specs for its Virtual Hard Drive software freely available under its self-named Open Specification Promise (OSP), Microsoft expects to cash in on the exploding trend.

Virtual Hard Drive, which runs under Microsoft's Virtual PC, is software that allows users to create simulated hard drives in files stored on a virtual machine co-existing with other virtual machines on a single server.

"We are focused on delivering interoperability by design," said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. "This means that customers have control over their data while vendors provide technologies that connect diverse systems. By having the VHD specification available under the OSP, the technology is viable for any development or business model. We continue to increase our commitment to interoperability in our products and by providing access to technologies like the virtualisation open format."

The move by Microsoft has been generally welcomed by both open source advocates and competing vendors.

Red Hat Deputy General Counsel Mark Webbink and former General Counsel for the Open Source Initiative Larry Rosen have both publicly expressed their approval of Microsft's OSP initiative for clarifying the legal concerns surrounding Microsoft's IP.

"We are pleased to collaborate with Microsoft to deliver interoperable virtualisation solutions to the market," said Simon Crosby, chief technology officer of virtualization software vendor XenSource Inc. "Today, we use Microsoft's VHD format to consume virtual machines that are created in Microsoft Virtual Server and get them up and running on XenEnterprise. Longer term, we're jointly developing technology so that Xen-enabled Linux guests will run on Windows Server virtualisation when it becomes available with the future version of Windows Server, code-named 'Longhorn.'"