Red Hat KVM virtualization suite to be released in RHEL 5.4

Red Hat has decided to switch its virtualization platform from Xen to KVM, starting with RHEL 5.4 in August 2009. Xen will remain supported in all RHEL versions that include it until the end of each version’s product life cycle: seven years from release. The reason for Red Hat’s dramatic virtualization platform change, during a version update, unfolds like a soap opera. Its protagonist must endure countless obstacles but keeps fighting to find a way out of a terrible period in life. In this story, the trouble began when Microsoft signed partnership agreements with XenSource, Novell, and Virtual Iron in August 2007. After that, Red Hat faced major difficulties developing Xen further, despite having had no such problems before. Red Hat needed a new way forward and looked for another open source virtualization project. It found KVM, which had just launched and been included in the Linux kernel after only six months of development.