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The Red Hat and Microsoft pact: A nice win for mixed source shops; Frenemies vs VMware

Red Hat and Microsoft have teamed up on a virtualization interoperability pact that’s a big deal for customers–especially the mixed source variety–and a potential worry for VMware.

The announcement, which landed Monday, has a few moving parts, but the big takeaway is that each company will validate and certify each other’s virtualization software and coordinate technical support. That’s a nice win for customers that are increasingly going mixed source with Linux and Windows servers in their data centers.

Here’s what you need to know:

* Red Hat and Microsoft customers will run Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual servers on either environment with configurations tested by both sides. Red Hat will validate Windows Server guests and Microsoft will reciprocate so that Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers will be supported on Windows Hyper-V. Matt Asay notes that the Red Hat-Microsoft pact “is a major win for customers.”
* Technical support will be coordinated. Microsoft’s Peter Galli adds that the deal “will allow customers to monitor end-to-end data center applications that are distributed across both Windows Server and RHEL, whether these servers are physical or virtual.”
* There are no patent, intellectual property or licensing fine print between the two sides. IP is what had the open source community screaming about the Microsoft-Novell pact. Mary Jo Foley explains:

To be clear, the newly minted Microsoft-Red Hat partnership is not the same as the Microsoft-Novell one that Microsoft unveiled two years ago. There is no patent-protection clause that is part of the new Microsoft-Red Hat agreement, meaning Red Hat has not agreed to license any Microsoft patents in the name of guaranteeing its customers that Microsoft won’t sue them for possible patent infringement. No support certificates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) will be sold by Microsoft, either.

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