Virtualization hot at LinuxWorld

BOSTON ¬? Vendors of virtualization and automation software released new wares and demonstrated how the technology fits into open-source environments this week at LinuxWorld.

Virtualization consolidates workloads, multiple operating systems or multiple instances of an operating system into a single box.

SWsoft, a company based in Herndon, Va., took steps to make it easier for information technology administrators to provision and manage virtual datacenters with the release of SWsoft Datacenter Automation Suite. The Web-based software also helps IT managers handle department user requests for server space by accommodating new applications and users on virtual servers.

The automation suite is used with SWsoft’s operating system virtualization product, Virtuozzo. Virtuozzo reduces the need for IT administrators to add physical servers and improves utilization of existing servers.

In addition, SWsoft’s OpenVZ, a subset of Virtuozzo, is now available for Fedora Café 5, an open-source operating system developed by the Fedora Project, which is sponsored by Red Hat.

Meanwhile, VMware, a developer of virtual infrastructure software based in Palo Alto, Calif., is making its virtual machine disk format specification available for free download.

The specification, which defines and formats virtual machine environments, will make it easier for systems management vendors to manage VMware virtual disk file formats. All developers, software vendors and open-source projects can use the spec. In addition, VMware officials said they would support any other open virtual machine disk formats broadly used by customers and work toward open standards in this area.