Submitted by For years, Microsoft has insisted that open-source vendors acknowledge that its patent portfolio is a precursor to interoperability discussions. Monday, Microsoft shed that charade and announced an interoperability alliance with Red Hat for virtualization. Red Hat has long argued that patent discussions only cloud true interoperability, which is best managed through open source and open standards. Now it has got what it wanted; unlike the Novell-Microsoft agreements, there is no exclusionary patent deals or cross payments.
The deal focusses on virtualisation, and covers the following aspects:
- Red Hat will validate Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows 2000 Server SP4, and Windows Server 2008 guests on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization technologies.
- Microsoft will validate Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 and 5.3 guests on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V (all editions) and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008.
- Once each company completes testing, customers with valid support agreements will receive cooperative technical support for:
- running Windows Server operating system virtualized on Red Hat Enterprise virtualization
- running Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
The key here is that unlike the deal between Novell and Microsoft, there is no patent covenant involved here. Also, technically this is not a joint agreement. Basically, what both companies have done is validated each other’s operating systems for the virtualisation validation programs.
So RedHat has shown the world that it is entirely possible to get interoperability without signing bogus patent deals. If Novell’s guys feel stupid they have all the reasons in the world to feel so. Great move by RedHat. Congratulations! I would like to congratulate Novell too, for finally realizing how stupid they are.
Seconded.
In Germany we would say “MS had to swallow a toad”.
Hopefully there are a lot more toads in MS’ future
I don’t think novell feel that stupid, the deal with microsoft allowed them to share and build technology togeather, for example Microsoft’s hyper-v supports suse out of the box.
Plus i do think that suse helped with persuading Microsoft to open up more, ok the deal is more restrictive than the red hat one, but moving to these new way of working for microsoft and open source has to be done in steps and the suse was a step.
Overall i don’t think that anyone should feel stupid, Microsoft, SUSE or any of the linux ecosystem, we are getting closer to a more open world.
Yes, but supporting Hyper-V doesn’t do a whole lot for Novell, and they have had precious little support from Microsoft in running Windows on their virtualisation platform despite the claims.
Microsoft makes deals to make money, and even more important than that, to protect their existing revenue streams from new threats like virtualising Windows on other platforms. Nothing more.
That’s not true. You guys judge things from a non-business point of view which is, in the end, usually wrong if you’re not talking about your home PC.
I tell you something. My company will soon enter the virtualization market and we are a 100% MS shop. While supporting most Windows variants in our virtualized eco-system based on Hyper-V, we will also consider letting our users choose Linux.
Now, try a wild guess: which is the ONLY Linux variant we will support in our 100% MS eco-system?
Correct: THAT (optimized) one. Got any idea what Novell got from agreement with MS?
The comments above are as about as unbusiness-like as one can possibly get. Microsoft opening up? Please……….. You ring-fence your own products and revenue streams first, and that is exactly what Microsoft is doing. It’s amazing how many Microsoft shops don’t even understand Microsoft’s own business model, but then, you exist only to sell their products secondary to your own survival. Good luck in the current climate ;-).
Under the terms of the deal Novell lets Microsoft sell Suse coupons and installations which exist surrounded by Windows Servers and need to work squarely in that environment. It will be supported for as long as Microsoft decides. It doesn’t help Novell sell its virtualisation platform one iota, and in fact, it actively damages their business there. It’s actually a part of the deal that these Suse servers need to exist in an AD domain.
This is where your understanding of the situation totally breaks down.
Those Linux servers will exist surrounded by Windows servers in a 100% controlled Microsoft environment. They will be surrounded by Active Directory domains that they will need to join as well as a lot of other Windows infrastructure that doesn’t sit very well with any other system apart from Windows. Linux can be installed there, but it’s not going to have a great time of things.
I wish you luck, but frankly, no one will care. You’re a Microsoft shop. Those wanting Linux will use the virtualisation platform that works most naturally with it, and that’s going to be paravirtualised through Xen, KVM or VMware. Guess what? You can run Windows well on all of those as well.
If you’re trying to turn your virtualisation system into a heteregeneuous OS environment then I’m afraid you backed the wrong horse. It’s only going to work where a Microsoft environment needs to do something with a Linux system at some point.
What optimised one? You can’t get more optimised than a paravirtualised Linux guest using KVM or Xen running on a Linux system, or on VMware that has also been running Windows longer than Hyper-V has. It’s a tough sell.
Novell got themselves into a deal where they paid their number one competitor, Microsoft, to sell their own server products in the virtualisation product of their number one competitor, Microsoft, surrounded by the number one competitive product for them, Windows Server. Obviously, you know little about it.
Business sense? Ha.
What is really amazing is how you apply your wishes to business rules, thus bending the reality of business results to your wishes. So something doesn’t make sense because… you don’t like it For example:
See? You don’t like SUSE to be “surrounded by Windows Servers” so, as a whole, it doesn’t make sense. True? Wrong. Classic example of business rules bending to you own taste or likes. And what’s worst is you apply those rules to everyone in the market because “it cannot be different that this” in your own world.
Of course this is plain wrong. I could tell you hundreds of cases where customers might want (or don’t care) to have SUSE surrounded by Window servers. But I’m sure you’re smart enough to find out at least a couple of them yourself oh sorry: that reality doesn’t exist…!
“It will be supported for as long as Microsoft decides.”
So what? The most important thing you know what terms are.
“It doesn’t help Novell sell its virtualisation platform one iota”
Again… so what? The thing here is not selling Novell virtualization platform. If we’re talking about virtualizing SUSE, that means we already selected our platform… don’t you think so?
And again, you’re misinformed. Just to cite press release from MS:
“Microsoft will make these coupons available to joint customers who are interested in deploying virtualized Windows on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, or virtualized SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on Windows.”
So you can access benefits when you virtualize SUSE on Windows or Windows on SUSE.
“and in fact, it actively damages their business there.”
Uh? You might seem to think people choose virtualization based on brands. It’s a functional decision rather than a fashion one. And again, it’s not a one way only as stated above. So customers might want to choose SUSE to virtualize Windows. How that manages to damage Novell is beyond me.
But I can tell you one real-world case: we didn’t want to let Linux inside our eco-system but we decided to allow SUSE for selected customers with specific needs. I know Novell will contact us to tell us we’re damaging their business… I’m sorry for them
This explain attitude. You’re fighting a war to evangelize people. We’re (fortunately) not. Good luck when you take decisions on religious belief rather than business sense.
That confirms that you have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you want me to say that Xen or KVM or VMware are better than Hyper-V so you could fulfill your insecurities? Sure! Long live! Linux is better!
Sure. Long live Linux! Better now?
lol Sure. You have no clue. But hey: long live Linux! XEN is better!
Since you have no clue, you think that someone willing to use Linux will only choose to go that way. Because, of course, they will choose Linux because it’s better than everything else. It’s wrong but you don’t care because you don’t care about business senses, only religious belief.
The fact that customers happily running MS products might want to get a Linux server for a specific reason but still they want to stay MS for 99% of their business doesn’t even cross your mind because hey… KVM is better! And if people want to do that, hey, they don’t exist! lol it makes sense to me… hmm….
lol Good luck for your business I’m glad we’re not a customer of yours Not that your arguments aren’t filled of real hard facts and business sense… of course…
It was fun. Thanks.
This is how Microsoft operates. They look at the endgame for their own products and revenue streams. They’re not interested in making money from Windows under Red Hat or Suse within their virtualisation systems if it means that it exists in an environment without Windows and limits the revenue from selling further licenses for CALs, SQL Server, Exchange etc. That’s the bottom line, and Microsoft has a substantial one as a result of this.
I can’t say I blame Microsoft for this, in fact I even admire it, but it’s amazing how others and even Microsoft’s competitors just do not get this and never have.
It depends if you’re integrating Linux into a pre-existing Windows environment and network, or integrating Windows into a pre-existing Linux/Unix environment and network. Guess which is easier to do well? Guess which environment has less leeway?
Errrrr, exactly the point. It doesn’t make business sense to Novell, that’s why, and that’s why the deal doesn’t make sense for them. I believe that was the main point of taking about this.
Errrrr, right. I choose to look at the practicalities of things rather than press releases.
Ergo it has no real future there. Thanks for the confirmation. I’m also comforted to know that you’re so privileged as an organisation to have an ecosystem.
The simple fact is that KVM, Xen and VMware have been running Linux, and even Windows, for an awful lot longer than Hyper-V has. People go with the mature solutions, and those already using Linux are more likely to go that route. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not that hard. Really.
So why are you a Microsoft-only shop then? Excuse me while I get back on my chair from a good laugh.
When you see someone talk about religion then you know for a fact that they’re struggling.
They might want to, but the odds are that they’re going to have much more difficulty running a hetergeneous environment from that perspective than anything else. Why? Because…………..they’ve actively bought into one vendor’s products already and are using features difficult to use with anything else. It’s not rocket science.
Sweetheart, let me let you into a secret. We make sure that when we do a contract and get paid that we don’t have a lot of pre-requisite costs that go to one software vendor before we do anything else, like consider other options, because we choose to only use their products!
Like I said, good luck with that that kind of inflexibility and fixed costs in the current climate ;-).
Edited 2009-02-17 17:28 UTC
I do not agree on this. Fundamentals changed a lot. There has been a time when Microsoft aimed to replace Unix and thus was fighting Linux like its worst enemy. But that time passed. Microsoft was the first to realize they are not going to wipe Unix out in the mid-term so they just make themselves comfortable with the idea of having to interoperate, more or less.
To keep it short, a Windows license in a Unix environment is license more they will sell. The same way a Novell SUSE installation in a Windows-only shop is more than nothing. And could start a trend.
I’m amazed that while Microsoft decided that it cannot win that war and major Unix players agreed (Sun, Novell, now Red Hat, all of them have agreement with MS), middle-sized and small companies are still fighting that war.
This is the same way we decided that even MS customers might need a Linux box sometimes. Instead of being MS zealots and tell our customers that Windows is THE way, we just give our customers what they want, without requiring them to change the way they want to work. I’m surprised this might not be easy to understand (if not agreeable).
I think competitors smelled the hard truth.
I’m glad that now “it depends”. A few hours ago there was a TRUTH and lots of lemmings. Now, it “just” depends This shows a lot.
No, the main point was to show how Novell was able to get a share where they had nothing. My (real-world, no hypothesis here) case was they were able to gain a little chair where they had no seat. You then decided the point was to sell Novell virtualization but that’s not the case. The point is to sell any Novell product, not just the one you mentioned. In our case, they won’t sell their virtualization platform, but they could sell other stuff. Easy.
This is practicalities. I cited MS press releases to confirm that the formal agreement already allows both ways of running the partnership and makes your argument that Novell was a 2nd class citizen in that agreement not true. If running virtual SUSE in a Windows network is a way to exploit Novell by Microsoft, so it could be considered running virtual Windows in a SUSE network. Of course Microsoft hopes to sell licenses to Unix shops the same way Novell hopes to sell some licenses to Microsoft ones.
When did I say I wanted SUSE to take over my network? Again, I’m sure Novell will reject my offer to sell some licenses to our customers because it’s damaging for them That just confirms that you haven’t other God than Linux. Other than that, it’s blasphemy. I’m happy to have many Gods Now, talking about flexibility…. lol
See? Usual my-cannon-is-longer argument again and again “Do the way I do or you’re wrong”. This is not a business argument: this is something you hear from priests
See? My way or nothing! lol
Errr… won’t comment about this It’s clear enough.
Then it became a technical matter. So if someone wants to deal with that complexity because they think they might get some kind of advantages out of it, who are you to tell them they should not try? Again, it’s-my-way-or-nothing argument. Note that I’m not telling you what to do with your business while you’re elevating yourself to a judge for everyone and tell them WHICH way they should go. I guess you know ALL businesses and all cases and can decide in their place
At least I’m glad that you switched from the “it cannot be done” argument to the “it’s not worth the pain” one.
If they could do what they need with their existing infrastructure, they wouldn’t need to look elsewhere. So if they need to solve a specific problem in a way they like, instead of adding 1-2-3 Linux servers, you would suggest them to switch the entire network to Linux? Now THAT makes sense Very flexible. Hey, we’re not talking about formatting home computer hard drive to decide if we’re going to boot Ubuntu or Mandriva here! Did you get it?
Thanks, dear. When I will want my partner to tell me to trash the whole network and switch to a different one instead of adding a single Linux server to my Windows network, I will contact you for sure because that looked very flexible to me
Well, maybe not yet. But there’s always the possibility that Microsoft will just decide to stab them in the back one day.
Oh please. You can’t compare both cases. Red Hat is solely a Linux distributor. Novell’s portfolio is much bigger. The patent deal with MS also covers GroupWise and other closed source offerings from Novell.
The next thing you should not forget is that Novell gets lots of cash from MS. Novell is a business. Businesses seek profit. That’s why Novell doesn’t feel stupid.
Red Hat hasn’t been solely a Linux distributor in a long time now. Red Hat acquired among other things JBoss (middleware), Netscape (directory, certificate server etc). Might want to refer
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RedHatContributions
Edited 2009-02-17 04:02 UTC
And Red Hat isn’t offering those as part of Red Hat Linux?
Granted, NetWare is just legacy stuff, but Novell’s product portfolio is still broader than Red Hat’s.
GroupWise, eDirectory, ZENworks, etc. are all major Novell products that need to work well on Windows, too.
Somehow the deal between Novell and MS is made in the popular media to be just about Linux and other FLOSS software, but it’s not. It’s not that Novell admitted that its FLOSS products violate MS patents. This deal isn’t even one-way. MS Exchange might violate Novell patents that are used in GroupWise and the other way around.
Why is the patent deal made into “Novell admits Linux violates MS patents”? Why not “MS admits, it violates GroupWise/NetWare/… patents”?
Novell fought SCO (and won). Novell contributes heavily to FLOSS. Among all companies there are many that are so much worse than Novell. Maybe my information is wrong, but I don’t think that e.g. Xandros contributes much to FLOSS — I don’t see Xandros on this list: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/gregkh/images/lpc_200… . In fact Xandros and MS made a very simiar deal: http://www.xandros.com/news/press_releases/xandros_microsoft_collab…
Still Xandros is praised for putting Linux on the eee PC and Novell is supposed to be the bad guy.
Red Hat is offering those as part of it’s broad range of products. It is a layered offering including Red Hat Network, Red Hat Directory Server, Red Hat IPA etc. Novell’s equivalent offerings are proprietary.
I have yet to see anybody praise Xandros really. Most people don’t care since Xandros isn’t a major contributor to any project. Besides Novell first signed the patent deal before Xandros did.
Edited 2009-02-17 20:58 UTC
Exactly. That’s why you can’t compare both deals.
“Red Hat is solely a Linux distributor”.
Yeah, sure:
http://sources.redhat.com/projects.html
http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/leadership/osdevelopment/
http://et.redhat.com/page/Main_Page
http://lwn.net/Articles/222773/
…
“It’s better to keep your mouth shut and give the impression that you’re stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”
All those projects are Open Source and most form important parts of Red Hat’s Linux distribution. I believe the point was that Novell, on the other hand, has a wide portfolio of closed source, commercial projects that are entirely seperate from it’s SUSE operating system. That is the difference between the circumstances of the two agreements.
Yes. Yes it is. To that end, please don’t make insulting remarks in the OSAlert comments section. Last time I looked, personal attacks were against the rules.
This is good for everyone. The easier it is for systems to work together, the easier my job as a sysadmin will be. I’m glad to see Red Hat was able to accomplish this while not compromising their stance on open standards.
I guess so. The way the press release reads, though, is so mealy-mouthed. Reading it, I can’t help but wonder if Red Hat has shifted to the Dark Side. I don’t really think they have. But I think the press release sounds creepy.
Edited 2009-02-16 21:06 UTC
Do you have specific concerns?
That was quick, Rahul. I’m still absorbing it all. I have great confidence in Red Hat. Based upon that confidence, I think they are probably doing the right thing. But my initial impression is that I should be concerned. This looks like a gamble. Please give me a little while longer to take it all in before I respond.
Edited 2009-02-16 21:16 UTC
There is a ogg download and pdf presentation in the bottom of
http://www-waa-akam.thomson-webcast.net/us/dispatching/?event_id=dc…
It is a pretty straightforward agreement that enables both vendors to validate and support each other’s systems under VM’s with no patent licensing or cross payments.
It’s not an agreement. It’s two separate agreements, they basically both signed on for the other’s certification program; Microsoft agrees to certify Red Hat for virtualization, Red Hat does the same. It’s really a stretch to call it an interoperability agreement. That would imply a joint-effort in ensuring improved interoperability, which I don’t think is quite the same thing.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and it’s certainly of value to end users on both sides, so it’s smart for both companies. But I suspect that the relevance is being overstretched a bit for the purposes of drama, and no doubt for the blogarazzi to drag a certain dead horse out of the grave since it seems to have miraculously enjoyed a couple of months of stateful rest.
This isn’t unprecedented, Red Hat has had similar “agreements” with MS in the past via JBoss.
Hmmm. That link, sporting Red Hat’s branding, immediately asks for First Name, Last Name, Company, and Email Address. And it says that submitting the form indicates my acceptance of a linked agreement.
That does nothing to alleviate my concerns about the creepiness of this situation.
It was freely accessible for so long when I pointed it out to you and all that has been added is a simple webform with some stock information anyone could fill in. Your reasoning doesn’t sound very logical to me. Anyway that webcast isn’t that important. The FAQ on the promo page gives you all there is to know about it.
What can I say? I clicked your link for the first time a few minutes ago, and was immediately presented with a Red Hat branded page demanding my Name, Company, Email Address, and saying that by submitting the form, I would get to hear the presentation, at the expense of accepting an agreement. I did listen to the presentation, and watched the associated slides. And it turned out to be the usual corporate-speak I am used to hearing from Novell, SCO, Microsoft, and others.
Basically: Virtualation is big. It could become much bigger. We think we’re going to make a lot more money off of it, and our new partner does to.
I simply didn’t happen to find all that to be particularly reassuring.
Edited 2009-02-18 20:15 UTC
That is all there is to it. Like I said, it is simply a set of bilateral set of agreements to certify and support each other’s operating system under a VM. Nothing more. The difference between Novell, SCO etc is more of what is missing (ie) all the exclusionary patent licensing etc that usually accompanies such agreements. You seem to be digging for something that doesn’t exist. Again, if you have an actual concern, I will be interested to hear it. There really doesn’t seem to be any.
agreed. it’s one of those ‘seems safe… so why do i feel like i need to take a shower’ sorta things.
i’m all for interoperability… and i’m all for doing it without all of the patent-y muck. can i be cautiously optimistic and still feel a little icky?
Calm the hell down. It’s just saying RedHat will certify Windows in thier virtualization methods, and MS will do vice versa. Big deal.
After looking over the situation more carefully, I would agree. This is not as big a deal as it seemed when first presented. The press release still sounds creepy, though.
Edited 2009-02-17 22:44 UTC
Press releases almost always read like that no matter where they come from. I’m no marketing guy but I swear companies have ‘press release writers’ and their art is to talk, and talk, and talk (and throw buzzwords in as they can).
Maybe someday we will get paravirtualized Windows. Anyway good move for booth sides.
AFAIK (appropriate versions of) Windows on the MS hypervisor is capable of running paravirtualised – not just in supporting “accelerated device drivers” but also in core OS functions like virtual memory management. This still relies on virtualisation-aware hardware (unlike Xen paravirtualisation, for instance, which predated the wide availability of AMD-V and Intel VT-x) but is there as a performance optimisation. I believe the relevant OS releases are Vista and its derived server version (I forget which release number this is).
There were patches – contributed by Novell, actually – to support these hypercalls under Xen. There was some back-and-forth about how many of those were actually a performance win (and therefore worth supporting directly under Xen). I don’t know if they have made their way into upstream (yet) but Novell may have been shipping / planning to ship these patches in their Xen in any case.
AFAIK (appropriate versions of) Windows on the MS hypervisor is capable of running paravirtualised – not just in supporting “accelerated device drivers” but also in core OS functions like virtual memory management. This still relies on virtualisation-aware hardware (unlike Xen paravirtualisation, for instance, which predated the wide availability of AMD-V and Intel VT-x) but is there as a performance optimisation. I believe the relevant OS releases are Vista and its derived server version (I forget which release number this is).
There were patches – contributed by Novell, actually – to support these hypercalls under Xen. There was some back-and-forth about how many of those were actually a performance win (and therefore worth supporting directly under Xen). I don’t know if they have made their way into upstream (yet) but Novell may have been shipping / planning to ship these patches in their Xen in any case.
There’s nothing specific that makes Xen and Hyper-V the only systems that could support this, though. VMware could implement these paravirtualisations if they wanted; so could KVM, VirtualBox, etc.
Disclaimer: I work on Xen.
It looks like a pretty straightfoward cross-support of one’s operating system working on the other’s virtualisation platform. Microsoft wanted to try and do something with their virtualisation offering to get it noticed but I think Red Hat have the better of the deal. They get Windows supported on their platform, which is a big deal for certainly a few organisations even if it works fine now anyway, and those using Red Hat will probably be using Red Hat’s virtual platform anyway.
It’s certainly rather a slap in the face for Novell and the convoluted, stupid deal they got themselves into.
It is my understanding that patents are valid for 12 years and than in some instances they might extended to 15 years. How come a patent that is 22 ydears old be valid now?
oops sorry, My comment was not intended for this discussion
keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer
microsoft would love for people to run linux in a VM on their OS’es, caaaa-ching
You mean, it’s just like Sun’s partnership with MS? http://www.microsoft.com/VIRTUALIZATION/partner-profile-sun.mspx
Do note that Sun’s partnership includes the whole xVM portfolio, including xVM VDI, while Red Hat’s only cover the hypervisor…
the news should be how late in the game Red Hat has gotten in the virtualization field.
Red Hat has been doing virtualization stuff for atleast a few years now and acquired Qumranet, primary developers of KVM sometime ago as well. The important news is that interoperability efforts doesn’t have to go with exclusionary patent deals.