Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How Virtualization Led Microsoft to Support Linux

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the tangled-web dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Why did Microsoft make the surprise announcement that it would support business customers who also use Linux? Because of the increasing importance of virtualization, Lee Gomes writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'Once businesses start using virtualization to cut back on the number of machines they need to buy, "a light bulb goes on over their head," says Tony Iams, who follows the field for Ideas International, an analyst group,' Gomes writes. 'Other uses become apparent, such as backing up data or easily adding processor power to a particular application as the need arises.' VMware pioneered the market, but now Microsoft is 'expected to offer sophisticated virtualization products in the next year or two,' Gomes writes. 'The company currently has a fairly rudimentary product, which was involved in its big Linux announcement earlier this month.'"

11 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Beware of Geeks bearing gifts! by Locke2005 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft is 'expected to offer sophisticated virtualization products in the next year or two,' Does Microsoft's definition of "sophisticated" include inducing random data corruption in any non-Microsoft OS? I think I'd be more a lot more comfortable getting my virtualization products from somebody that lets me look at the source code.

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Beware of Geeks bearing gifts! by VGR · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think that deserves to be labeled flamebait.

      This is something Microsoft has already done with other products they could not otherwise embrace, extend and extinguish: They simply make it look bad.

      Like distributing Java 1.1 for years. Or having pages return degraded content for Opera browsers.

      I don't know that they'll introduce actual data corruption, but I can certainly envision the VM doing a number of things very slowly, particularly if it's running Linux or emulating functionality that Linux is known to frequently rely on. It may not even be deliberately hobbled functionality, but rather "lax support" for some key functionality.

      --
      The Internet is full. Go away.
  2. Microsoft != stupid by CogDissident · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They know that open source can be good for them sometimes. While many of you might be huge linux advocates, the fact remains that many of the bigger companies still use windows server solutions. Its not so much that they support linux, is that now that its a viable solution, if they can blend themselves into linux, but still get you to pay for M$ products, then they come out ahead.

    The simple fact is that M$ wants to keep its name in the big buisnesses because 10,000 licenses a year is a big deal, plus those big boys of buisness also influence their workers to be familiar with windows, which leads their families to purchase windows, and so on and so on.

  3. VMWare "pioneered" the market???? by cdn-programmer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What about IBM? Seems VMWare is about 40 years late.

  4. Copycats by thegattaca · · Score: 4, Funny

    We swear! It has nothing to do with Boot Camp or VMWare!

  5. How much support? by bastardadmin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Before everyone gets all smiley and happy about this, what depth of support are they offering?
    Are we talking OS configuration and administration support, or merely: "Is your Linux VM booting?" level of support?

    I've heard conflicting reports about this. Can anyone set the record straight? I'm asking you, MS Virtual Server team...

    1. Re:How much support? by w3bgeek · · Score: 3, Informative

      While I'm not part of the team, I do use VS on a regular basis and have a bit of insight on this topic.

      First off, a little about how Linux support is accomplished. Virtual Server and Virtual PC use a package of "additions" which are installed in the "guest" virtual machine for performance and useability optimizations. The additions are basically device drivers optimized for for the virtualized hardware used inside the "guest". WIth luck and persistance, you've always been able to run Linux under VPC and VS, as the virtualized hardware is pretty much lowest-common-denominator stuff. The recent announcement was around both support and the fact that additions were created and released for a list of about a dozen popuplar distributions.

      A little known fact is that the development and support of the additions was outsourced. This was mainly done to avoid "polluting" the VS/VPC products with GPL and other Open Source licenses that require re-released of derived code. The same company which created the additions is also the one doing the support - when a customer calls with a Linux issue, Microsoft supoprt just passes the call on to the support company, with the charges being under the Microsoft support model. This sort of thing isn't unusual. What *is* unusual is internal Microsoft employees can't even use the additions, as installing them requires kernal code in the virtual machine, which is against their anti-pollution policy.

      As far as the support level, it's essentially the same as for Microsoft's own OS, with the "commercially reasonable" caveat, which basically measn they reserve the right to stop if the time/resources required to run down the fix is unreasonable. What "unreasonable" means is of course subject to interpretation...

  6. Re:and... by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And wake me up when MS also natively supports Ext3, ReiserFS, etcetera on their own OSes too (do they?). Microsoft not interoperating with others, while everybody else tries to play nice with each other, could eventually lead to it's downturn as it is painting itself into a corner. Especially since they aren't the only game in town (practically) in a lot of areas like they used to be in the late 80's, and most of the 90's.

  7. Re:and... by pla · · Score: 4, Informative

    And wake me up when MS also natively supports Ext3, ReiserFS, etcetera on their own OSes too

    Why? With virtualization, the host OS has no need to understand the guest OS's filesystem any more than it needs to know the guest's binary format. You just point it at a partition or an FS image file, and let it do its thing.


    Some of us actually consider that one of the most useful features of running a virtual machine - Absolutely perfect 100% backups involve nothing more complicated than shutting down the guest OS and copying its image file. You can even perfectly backup a running OS that way, you just need to pause it and do a state dump; Then when you restart it, you resume right where you left off.

  8. OS sold with server is important by Enrique1218 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft wants to remain relevant with the OEMs. The way to keep that secure is to make sure that OEM will still offer Windows with their servers. Virtualization's emergence may redefine the importance of the operating system. It is spreading from high end server right down to the desktop. Microsoft will be keen to support competitors operating systems including Linux because Linux certianly will support Windows via VMWare/Xen. Otherwise, OEMs will begin bundling Linux over Windows with the knowlegde that it can always be install after market as a virtual OS. When that happens Microsoft loses clout with the OEMs which may trickle down to destops. Also, the other reason is to compete to be the host OS and not the virtual one because the customer may rely more on that OS than the virtual one and is more likely to invest more in it.

    --
    You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
  9. Been there... by besenslon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    but now Microsoft is 'expected to offer sophisticated virtualization products in the next year or two.

    So, what's new. We've seen it before.

    1. Say that you are going to release a "new", "feature rich", "superior", etc. product after an year.

    2. Businesses stop buy competing products, thus killing the competitors.

    3. Release a crappy product, stolen (or bought) from someone, and cripple it more.

    4. ?????? (Balmer jumps, etc.)

    5. Profit