In August 2006 SWsoft announced next version of Virtuozzo, its OS virtualization solution, will provide management tools also for other virtualization platforms, including VMware, Xen and Microsoft ones.
Today Ilya Baimetov, Director of Technology at SWsoft, in a new post on its corporate blog announced this support will include also upcoming Microsoft hypervisor: Windows Server Virtualization (codename Viridian).
There are several reasons explaining why his move, announced so early, makes perfectly sense:
- SWsoft recently tightened its relationship with Microsoft, signing a support agreement so to cover its customers when running Virtuozzo for Windows.
- SWsoft wants to enter server virtualization market with its subsidiary Parallels, which is expected to launch a couple of server products this summer. To be able to compete with VMware these new products will have to provide serious enterprise management tools, and it’s relatively easier and less expensive developing a multi-platform one rather than two.
- Server virtualization is slowly becoming a free commodity. Profit for virtualization vendors will come by management tools only within few years. Developing one able to support all existing hypervisor on the marke seems a good investment at this moment.