Cisco puts KVM in its IOS
KVM is the youngest virtualization platform on the scene but the strategic positions it occupied so far beat any competitor.
First, it was included in the Linux kernel after just six months from the launch, and thus today any distribution sporting kernel 2.6.20 or higher can offer it out-of-the-box.
Then it was chosen over Xen for one of the most popular consumer distribution ever: Ubuntu.
And now Cisco includes it in the new IOS-XE, the Linux-powered operating system for its highest-end router: the ASR 1000.
The Aggregation Services Router (ASR) 1000 is the first Cisco router that replaces its traditional in-house developed IOS with Linux and targets service providers and biggest enterprises.
Among the exclusive features offered by this new equipment there is the operating system redundancy, achieved without any hardware module: a first in the networking industry.
How Cisco is able to provide a redundant IOS image? Through KVM virtual machines as Information Week reports.
At this point is still unknown which version of Linux kernel is used for IOS-XE and which version of KVM as well, but the company must be absolutely sure of its reliability to use it in such high-end product.
It’s interesting that fact that Cisco chosen KVM for this task, while it’s very busy with VMware, investing in VMW, occupying its keynotes, and maybe (it’s still an unconfirmed news) releasing a software switch for ESX Server.
Update: This news is bigger than expected, despite few online magazines reported it.
virtualization.info contacted KVM Lead Developer about the story and received a No Comment answer. Other inquiries to Cisco and Qumranet returned no answers at all so far.
Second update: virtualization.info received a second No Comment from Qumranet.
At this point being a Cisco ASR 1000 potential customer or a VMware shareholder we’d like to have some detailed explainations about what Cisco is exactly doing with KVM and why there’s an embargo on the story.
Third update: Colin McNamara provides some more details about the the ASR 1000 architecture and the use of KVM inside it.
virtualization.info Newest articles
December 20th, 2011
Oracle has released version 4.1.8 of its virtualization platform VM VirtualBox. This version which can be considered a maintenance release can be installed on top of any VM VirtualBox 4.1.x…
December 20th, 2011
VKernel, recently acquired by Quest Software has released version 4.5. of its vOperations Suite (vOps). vOperations is a suite of products providing Performance Analysis, Capacity Management, Resource Optimization, Reporting and…
December 7th, 2011
Teradici is the developer of the PC-over-IP (PCoIP) remote desktop protocol, which is leveraged in software (by VMware view) and provided with Teradici hardware solutions which are OEM’ed by several…
December 7th, 2011
Citrix has released a whitepaper titled:"Windows 2008 R2 Optimization Guide For Desktop Virtualization with XenApp 6 / 6.5", the paper which contains 23 pages outlines optimization for XenApp 6 and…
December 6th, 2011
In November Microsoft released a public beta of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) version 6.5. Today Microsoft announced its release, which is the follow-up of version 6.0 which…
December 6th, 2011
Open source vendor Red Hat has released version 6.2 of its Linux distribution, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This version is the follow-up of version 6.1 which was released in May…
December 6th, 2011
Microsoft has released version 3.2 of the Linux Integration Services for its hypervisor Hyper-V. This version is the follow-up of version 3.1 which was released in July this year.
The…
November 29th, 2011
Since its first official release beginning 2009, the Virtual Session Indexer(VSI) has gained popularity as an independent benchmarking tool. One of the projects using the VSI tool is Project Virtual…
November 21st, 2011
VMware has released version 4.1 of its desktop virtualization platform for Apple Mac: Fusion. This release is considered an minor upgrade for version 4.0 which was released in September this…
November 21st, 2011
In September VMware released a new major version of its virtualization platform Workstation 8.0 and in October it released Player 4.0. Now VMware released an update for its virtualization platform…
November 17th, 2011
VMware has released version 4.7 of of its application virtualization solution ThinApp. This version includes the ability to use ThinApp packages in combination with its Software as a Service (SaaS)…
November 17th, 2011
VKernel, provider of performance and capacity management products, has announced its acquisition by Quest Software. VKernel will operate as a independent subsidiary of Quest.
VKernel entered the virtualization market in…
November 16th, 2011
Lanamark has released a new version of its Capacity Planning platform Suite, this version is the follow up of version 2010 which was released in March last year.
Suite 2012…
November 15th, 2011
In November last year, started releasing Solaris 11 Express, the development version eventually leading to the release of Oracle Solaris 11 which was released last week. Solaris is one of…
Copyright © 2003-2012 virtualization.info. All rights reserved.
virtualization.info | cloudcomputing.info | virtualization.tv | Virtualization Congress