Microsoft to support Citrix XenServer 5
Published: 11 Sep 2008 16:47 BST
Microsoft and Citrix will announce on Monday that they are to work more closely on virtualisation.
The two software makers already have a close relationship, going back to 1989. As a result of a new agreement, they will announce that Microsoft is validating version 5 of the XenServer hypervisor, Citrix's virtualisation software, for use with the Windows Server 2008 operating system.
The news emerged on Thursday at a roundtable hosted by Citrix, but the agreement will come as little surprise to industry watchers. Microsoft showed signs of wanting to extend its presence in the virtualisation market recently when it relaxed the licensing that limited the use of its own Hyper-V hypervisor. Then, earlier this week, it said that it was giving Hyper-V away for free.
At the roundtable, Neil Sanderson, head of virtualisation products at Microsoft, said that his company and Citrix have "a long-standing relationship", which now includes the Microsoft validation.
What the agreement means in practice is that customers using XenServer 5 can now "call about that hypervisor and [Microsoft support] will take that call", Sanderson said. That would be carried out under Microsoft Premier Support, he said.
Sanderson said it was good that there are a number of competing hypervisors on the market, including products from VMware and Sun, as well as from Microsoft and Citrix.
John Glendenning, vice president of server virtualisation at Citrix EMEA, agreed. "We are committed to the XenServer environment, but the great thing is that the customer has a choice," he said.
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