Microsoft Presents at Red Hat Summit

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by Brett Shoemaker on July 01, 2010 12:57pm

Not only did a few of us spend last week in Boston for Red Hat Summit, but also we presented. Yes, Microsoft presented at Red Hat Summit ... and drew a nice crowd.

If you're a regular Port 25 follower, you are likely aware of the ongoing work we have been doing around the Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V. Well, this session was a continuation of that effort, focusing on the combined work of Microsoft and Red Hat to make our platforms run well on each other's virtualization offerings. If you're interested, it's similar to the presentation that we gave at Microsoft's TechEd 2010 conference a few weeks ago.

The reason for our presence at Red Hat Summit is a simple. We recognize that whether by design, by acquisition, or by accident, there are a mix of platforms in most IT environments. Yes, Microsoft and Red Hat compete and will continue to do so, but our customers' mixed environments require interoperable solutions.

The questions from Red Hat's attendees were no different than those from attendees at Microsoft's events. Interest is high, and customers want to know where the capabilities are today and what is coming in the future.

And, most importantly, how can I try it out (for free)? If you are wondering about the answer to that last one, you can they get the Integration Component code here and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, our free, stand-alone hypervisor, here. Plus, there are great "How to" videos and blogs for installing, running, and backing up Linux on Hyper-V (#1, #2, #3).

To be honest, I expected more looks of surprise when I told attendees that I worked for Microsoft but that wasn't the case at all. Maybe it was because Red Hat executives, in their keynotes, recognized that Red Hat Enterprise Linux often runs virtualized on Hyper-V, but I think more likely it was because it just makes sense that we would be there.

After all, we are there because our customers demand it, and Microsoft is committed to meeting the needs of our customers.