Because there's a lot of interesting research and new technology coming out which is Xen based and not KVM. It looks like things will remain that way for some time.

Or, to look at it another way, KVM is behind the tech curve, and has a ways to go to catch up.

Then there's the issue of having to change over to a different infrastructure. Do you have any idea of what it takes to handle the vast number of VMs in Cloud Computing?

All in all, it's just better to go with a vendor which is more committed to your requirements.

Either RedHat's Marketing department is seriously misleading, or you're seriously mistaken.

. Again, the question isn't whether old existing installations will be supported. It's about RedHat dropping Xen for future installations.

Let me give you this Marketing blurb, since you don't seem to be aware of it: Red Hat Sets Its Virtualization Agenda "Red Hat's strategic direction for the future development of its virtualization product portfolio is based on KVM,

and

"Existing Xen-based deployments will continue to be supported for the full lifetime of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and Red Hat will provide a variety of tools and services to enable customers to migrate from their Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Xen deployment to KVM."

Note the words "existing" and RHEL5. No mention about the future except for migrating to KVM.

It's pretty clear that, going forward, if you want to stay with RedHat, you need to move away from Xen.

Sorry, but many people are going to stay with Xen over RedHat. Fortunately there are companies who are willing to accomodate them.

If you have some official news to the contrary, I'd appreciate hearing about. Because right now, people are looking at (and finding) alternatives to Redhat.

"Again, wrong. RHEL 5 ships with Xen, and will support Xen until at least 2014. OUL also ships with Xen. Please remember, KVM has not shipped in *any* RHEL release (major or minor) yet. Only Red Hat internally knows the release agenda."

I hate to correct an otherwise good post, but that is at best misleading, and at worst just plain wrong. Redhat has announced that they are only going to support existing Xen installations, while providing a way to migrate to KVM.

Xen is dead with Redhat. At least for now.

Personally, I think this is a major screwup by RH, as I know of sites which had been stongly RH but are now looking at dropping them. Sorry, KVM just isn't ready for serious primetime. What's worse, is that the majority of Virtualization research out there is centered around Xen, for the simple fact that it's been around longer.

So Xen is the focus of the next generation of technology, and will remain that way for a while.

And before the KVM fanatics jump up shouting the usual "but-it's-faster!" mantra, you should be aware that Type II hypervisor support (ala KVM) was announced a couple weeks ago at the Xen Summit (at Oracle's HQ, btw).

So one can either choose a KVM type of hypervisor, or the original Xen hypervisor.

Oh, and I heard that the guy who did it coded up in 12 days as a lark.

But unfortunately one doesn't seem to have a choice with Redhat..

I certainly hope CentOS picks up the Xen work from Fedora this year. Otherwise I'll have to look to Oracle for serious datacenter work. I'm not happy about that at all, as I've been a very strong fan of Redhat (and have given them lots of business.

But this really underscores how good it is sticking with Open Source. At least I DO have choices.

There are about 3.5 million in IT, according to the BLS.

There are over 1 Million cheap workers here on the H1/L1 Visa program. That's quite a sizeable percentage of the total U.S. employment. And it's FAR greater than the total number of unemployed IT workers.

The basic fact is that if you want to eliminate or seriously reduce unemployment in the IT sector in the U.S., all you have to do is to eliminate all of the H1/L1 visas.

This would have the added benefit of opening up jobs to those in other fields (like the automotive industry). Yes, there would have to be some retraining. But we have such programs around, and they are a lot better than the fake educational systems (I.e. diploma mills) overseas.

It's time to eliminate the guest worker programs, and send the H1/L1s back home.

I just wanted to thanks for the many insightful comments here. I think they have answered quite well my original question, and have given me a better perspective on the situation.

Thank you! I knew there had to be one example out there, but I couldn't think of it.

That's the truth. Sun, Xen and even Microsoft are giving VMWare a run for their money nowadays.

There's one interesting thing which has struck me, that I haven't seen any comments on. Namely, that VMWare is stuck competing between Microsoft on the one hand, and several Open Source projects on the other (with some of the Open Source projects having serious financial backing).

Being positioned between Microsoft and Open Source generally hasn't been a good spot to be in (indeed, has anyone succeeded here?). So I have to wonder how VMWare is going to stand up in the future?

I've been a big fan of VMWare in the past, as it has saved my butt more than once. However, now I find myself using Xen more, and seriously considering Sun's offerings.

To VMWare's credit, they have arguably the best person in the world for the job as CEO (at least on paper). Some might remember Paul Maritz as being one of the top people from Microsoft, as well as having led Microsoft's original *NIX strategy (I.e. Xenix). So if there's anyone who can compete there, it is him.

But still, it is not an enviable position to be in, and it makes me wonder how they are going to compete in the long term? Especially since, from a technology basis, the Open Source efforts are arguably better.

Anyone care to add some insightful comments on this? The only way that I can see VMWare winning is if everyone else screws up. While that's possible, there's a lot of money at stake in the Virtualization field, and I think the odds of that happening are low.