Linux vendor Red Hat Inc. is aggressively pushing to get Xen virtualization technology included in the Linux kernel as quickly as possible.

Brian Stevens, the newly appointed chief technology officer of the Raleigh, N.C., company, said that previous efforts to merge Xen into the kernel ran out of steam when nobody stepped forward to drive them. Red Hat is now stepping forward, Stevens said.

This move comes as Microsoft Corp. is pushing its own virtualization products and recently relaxed some of its licensing requirements around Windows Server 2003 to facilitate more pervasive adoption and use of those technologies.

Part of the Red Hat emerging technology team’s efforts will be to drive the Xen virtualization technologies as part of the Linux kernel rather than as part of a sidebar project, as is currently the case, Stevens said.

“My goal is to get this done in the most collaborative way possible with anyone in the community who wants to participate,” Stevens said, adding that Red Hat is committed to putting on this project enough of its staff who have the technical knowledge necessary to get the work done.

In addition, it recently hired an additional six staff members in the virtualization area alone. “We haven’t been able to focus enough on this until now to help get it done. So we’ve stepped up to work on this and help get it done. We’d like to have this done in the next two months. I don’t think it’s a long-term project at all,” he said.

A big part of the strategy is making virtualization and its management a part of a Linux system, “so this is not just maturing the technology but having the operating system itself, the kernel itself, be intimately aware that it is being virtualized so that it participates,” Stevens said.

Complete Article at eWeek