Another hypervisor 'geek party' to which only Novell is invited

Those who have read previous posts about virtualisation might already know that there's a worrisome pattern wherein Novell's (and Microsoft's) rivals get excluded from so-called 'interoperability' benefits [1, 2, 3]. This is no accident. The companies work in isolation, provided their collective portfolios and royalties. It is a way of keeping players like Red Hat, Debian and Ubuntu out of the loop and thus pressure them out of the datacentre. It's brutal and unfair.

Showing this is easier not by composing long rants, but by pointing to brand-new articles. Here are some bits with highlights in red, where appropriate.

Novell says its “SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Service Pack 2,” or SP2, is the only Xen-based solution of its kind and includes support for Microsoft for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 users.

Exclusive, eh? Coincidence? Here is another.

Novell’s Service Pack 2 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 released yesterday has one especially hot item in its bag of assorted goodies: the Xen 3.2 virtualization engine. Since both SUSE as well as Windows Server 2003 and 2008 run natively (and fully supported by Microsoft) on Xen 3.2, Novell customers can run both SUSE and Windows virtual guests on the platform with no loss in performance — or so Novell promises.

Bernard Golden, a Linux author and the CEO of Navica Inc. consulting, said cross-platform virtualization could be convenient for a Novell shop that wants to test or deploy a Windows application virtually on SUSE machines prior to a full-scale rollout without tying up a lot of Windows servers.

Some times ago, Citrix insisted that it paid so much money mainly for the Xen brand and less for the technology. Now it pulls a fast one, or as the article below puts it, it "pull[s] the rug from under people['s feet]."

If you've been watching Citrix lately, you have probably seen the Xen branding and the product push with the XenApp, XenDesktop, and XenServer product lines. Good marketing to be sure, capitalizing on the Xen name in the virtualization space.

[...]

So really, it doesn't appear as if a whole lot is changing or that the new policy is pulling the rug from under people. What do you think about it? Are you creating a Xen based product? Are you upset that you can't call it "XenSomething"? Or are you ok with calling it "Something for Xen"?

Some go as far as saying that Xen's future is not bright, but would that truly be loss? We already have KVM, which is more elegant.

While Citrix Systems’ Xen’s ubiquity may help the technology earn a legacy as the invisible hypervisor, it may also prove the most challenging next step for IT administrators and developers who want to find or develop software that leverages, supports or extends the Xen hypervisor.

Sadly, the article above also puts down and dismisses Java, but not everyone agrees.

SpringSource CEO: 'The Future of Enterprise Java is Clear and Bright'

[...]

"Organizations now have a choice that reduces the complexity associated with legacy Java EE servers," said SpringSource CEO Rod Johnson yesterday as his company attempted to redefine the application server market by releasing the SpringSource Application Platform, an enterprise Java application server that Johnson contends provides "a dramatically simpler alternative to legacy application servers and redefines the way in which Java applications are deployed and run."

We recently shared another article from he same source and it suggested that Java is indeed set to thrive in the clouds. Of course, that's not what Mono developers want you to believe. They are desperate to change people's perceptions. e.g. by heralding very prematurely a demise of Java. Sounds familiar? We present a precious find below. ⬆

"Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, "he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2." Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors' technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time."

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]