Open Virtualization Alliance Membership Grows Significantly With Cloud Companies and in Emerging Markets

The Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), a consortium committed to fostering the adoption of open virtualization technologies, including Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), today announced that it is experiencing rapid growth in participation from companies focused on cloud computing and emerging markets around the globe.  

KVM provides unique advantages for companies looking for an open alternative for building cloud deployments and in emerging markets where cost and freedom from vendor lock-in are key criteria in selecting a virtualization solution.  With these advantages offered by KVM, the OVA has gained particular traction and participation from cloud and emerging markets-focused technology companies in the recent months since its establishment.

More than 50 percent of OVA members are focused on cloud computing, and virtualization is a key component of every cloud. Efficiency, flexibility and reliability are key attributes that cloud providers need to deliver to their customers. By supporting open virtualization and KVM, cloud companies can reduce costs, increase virtual machine density, improve performance, harden security and deploy highly scalable and reliable clouds.

OVA membership is also growing significantly among companies in new global regions, including Asia Pacific and Latin America.  Businesses in growth markets need to be able to start fast and quickly scale their operations with minimum investment. Mirroring the rapid adoption of Linux and other open source technologies in emerging markets, the low cost, high quality and increased choice provided by open virtualization and KVM is enabling technology companies from Brazil to Japan to help clients virtualize and optimize their infrastructure.

"The tremendous growth in OVA membership is a very encouraging sign of the interest and potential for KVM in emerging markets and in the cloud, where open virtualization is poised to be a key technology. Over 200 members in three months is a rapid pace and really builds a solid foundation for a robust alliance,” said Gary Chen, research manager, Enterprise Virtualization Software at IDC.  “With such a solid, and still growing, member base, it will be interesting to see what kind of output and influence the alliance can generate in the near future to promote KVM."

"We've worked closely with OVA member Autonomic Resources to create a new business and analytics platform using a combination of open source cloud and virtualization technologies," said James Ellis, director, Office of Survey Support & Application Management at the US Energy Information Administration. "With this solution, we're reducing costs, advancing technology capabilities, introducing standards-based computing and driving toward our goal of attaining our Cloud First policy. With KVM as the base of our platform, we're reaching new levels of performance and scalability for our systems."

More than 200 technology companies have joined the OVA in total, delivering over a 20-fold growth in members since its launch three months ago.

At its launch in May 2011, the OVA founding members included BMC Software, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat and SUSE.  The consortium announced the addition of 65 members in June 2011 and today builds on this fast-growing membership with the addition of 134 new members, including:  6WIND, AccelOps, Acronis, ACT750, aiCache, Aleux, ALOG Datacenters do Brasil, Alphinat, Altern-IT, Appnovation, AppZero, Authernative, Avere, Bacula Systems, Balidea, Bloombase, Bobcares, Broadcom, CA Technologies, Canonical, Centec Networks, Chelsio, CiRBA, ClassCat Co., Ltd., CloudPassage, CloudRows, CloudShare, Cloudsoft Corporation, Cloudspace, Colfax International, ComputeNext, Coraid, CoreDial, LLC, coreFusion, CumuLogic, Cybera, DataStax, DCH LLC, Defcon-IT, Dyn, Eaton, ElasticHosts, ElasticStack, Emulex, Endace, Ennoia Systems, Exelanz, Exetra ICT, FOSS-Group GmbH, Fujitsu, Guida Advisory, HelpSystems, Hitachi, Hitachi Data Systems, Igelamerica, Infosim, InfraStacks, LLC, Interface Masters Technologies, IPe, iSencia, IT Linux, Jambu, Jaspersoft, Jinfonet Software, Jinny Software, Joyent, JW Electronic Co. Ltd., K35, Kamp.de, Leading Edge, Linbit, LinuxIT, m2mi, Mamatec, Manage Operations MO, ManageIQ, Mellanox Technologies LTD., Midokura, MiTAC International Corp., MKNOD, NEC, Neebula, NetApp, Net Direct Systems, NetView, Netweb Technologies, Nexenta, NoLogin, Nubefy, Obsidian Systems, OnApp, op5 AB, OpenCrowd, OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA), Persistent Systems, Platform Computing, PLX Technology, Pragmatech Solutions Inc., Puppet Labs, QLogic, QNAP, Quest Software, Radware, RAID Inc., Raima, ReasonNet b.v., Savant Tecnologia da Informação, ScaleMP, ScaleXtreme, SecludIT, Securelinx, Silicom, Silver Peak Systems, SkyLinux, Soporte Libre, Sourcefire, Splunk, StreamWIDE, Sublime IP, Summan, System Fabric Works, Texas Memory Systems, Tripwire, Unitrends, VaraLogix, Virtensys, Virtual Open Systems, Vision Solutions, Vizuri, VKernel, WiKID Systems, Inc., Xsigo and Zenoss.

With one of its goals to foster the development of best practices around KVM, work has begun amongst participating members of the Open Virtualization Alliance to create and publish KVM-specific documentation. Through the Open Virtualization Alliance's call for papers, members can submit best practices, performance and optimization resources, tips and tricks, technical whitepapers, case studies and solution summaries.

KVM is also establishing a footprint with leading virtualization benchmark performance results. For example, of the seventeen SPECvirt 2010 benchmark results published at http://www.spec.org, ten were achieved using KVM technology, including the highest performance benchmark overall and the highest number of performant virtual machines running on a single host.

For more information about the Open Virtualization Alliance and its members, visit www.openvirtualizationalliance.org.

For more information about joining the Open Virtualization Alliance, visit http://www.openvirtualizationalliance.org/contact/.


About Open Virtualization Alliance
The mission of the Open Virtualization Alliance is to foster the adoption of KVM as an open virtualization alternative, accelerate the emergence of an ecosystem of third-party solutions around KVM, increase overall awareness and understanding of KVM, encourage interoperability, promote best practices and highlight examples of customer successes.  Founding members of the Open Virtualization Alliance include BMC Software, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, Inc. and SUSE.


Quote Sheet:

“6WIND is delighted to join the Open Virtualization Alliance. Our high-performance packet processing software enables cloud equipment OEMs and service providers to optimize their ROI by dynamically provisioning networking resources as virtualized applications, while ensuring seamless scalability in line with end-user demands.”
-- Eric Carmès, CEO, 6WIND

"Bacula Systems is passionate about the Open Virtualization Alliance; Bacula Systems' highly scalable open source backup and restore solution is truly open source, and the OVA's ideals of open virtualization as an alternative to proprietary solutions closely match those of Bacula Systems."
-- Aristide Caraccio, VP Sales & Marketing Worldwide, Bacula Systems

"Both OVA and jclouds promote choice in cloud computing environments.  Cloudsoft's professional open source support for jclouds furthers the goal of OVA, enabling portable control of KVM-powered clouds like Eucalyptus and CloudSigma."
--  Adrian Cole, Founder, jclouds and Chief Evangelist, Cloudsoft

“By being one of the first full Java PaaS providers for the federated cloud, CumuLogic is pleased to be part of the Open Virtual Alliance, to help accelerate the adoption of open virtualization technologies like KVM.  We support KVM-based solutions to help lower overall cost, facilitate a faster time to market and provide customers with choice. We look forward to working with the OVA and their impressive list of members.”
--  Rajesh Ramchandani, Founder and VP of Products, CumuLogic

"The Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) has quickly gained a huge following. At Eucalyptus Systems, we are seeing KVM use grow among users who want to avoid lock-in with an open source cloud platform."
-- Marten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus Systems

“As a leading open source company, Jaspersoft has become the provider of the world’s most widely deployed business intelligence software. We believe that open source will power the New IT Stack, from virtualization through the application layers. The goals of the Open Virtualization Alliance align well with Jaspersoft's mission and so we are proud to be an active member.”
-- Karl Van den Bergh, Vice President, Product & Alliances, Jaspersoft Corporation

“Jinfonet is thrilled to join the OVA. This opportunity has come at a strategic time with JReport’s expanding cloud support.  We’re glad to enhance our offerings by presenting customers with the flexibility to use JReport conventionally or in a virtualized environment.”
-- Dr. Bing Yao, President, Jinfonet Software

“Joining the OVA demonstrates our unwavering support for the open source community, and our commitment to provide the most efficient connectivity solutions for virtualized data centers and cloud applications.  We believe the joint collaboration will bring on a new era of innovative technological advances and best practices that will enable the most efficient solutions to complex networking issues faced by our customers.”
--  Motti Beck, Director of Marketing, Mellanox Technologies

"NDS is looking forward to being a part of the Open Virtualization Alliance. This partnership not only promotes the industry to stay connected, but allows us to move forward with driven systems like Kernel Virtual Machine that we rely on and support. KVM is essential in the services we provide, and we are excited to embark on a propelling movement with the Open Virtualization Alliance."
--Phil Santoni, President, Net Direct Systems

"Nubefy is proud to be a member of the Open Virtualization Alliance. As our offering spans across the cloud computing industry, we hope that our work in collaboration with other members of this alliance, will allow us to provide guidance to introducing management standards to address the complexity of managing multi-vendor virtualized environments."
– Eric Meyer, CEO, Nubefy

“OnApp is delighted to become a member of OVA. OnApp Cloud has supported KVM since version 2.1. KVM is where the momentum lies for cloud hosts in terms of development, and it’s where we see the richest set of virtualization features our customers depend on – such as pass-through technologies, and the ability to over-subscribe resources.”
--Roger Nolan, Chief Technology Officer, OnApp

"Platform Computing's mission is to support openness and choice for our customer cloud and grid environments across physical, virtual and cloud resources. The mission of the Open Virtualization Alliance is highly aligned with our vision for the future of distributed computing and we look forward to continuing the adoption of KVM."
– Jay Muelhoefer, VP, Marketing, Platform Computing

"PLX Technology strives to develop the highest performance, lowest power connectivity solutions for enterprise data centers and open source KVM is especially important in our newest designs.  Our PCI Express and 10 Gigabit Ethernet silicon devices are backed by powerful value-added software where full virtualization solutions are vital."
--  David Raun, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, PLX

“Virtualized infrastructures are being widely adopted as organizations seek the benefits of server consolidation as well as the ability to deploy applications with greater efficiency and speed.  QLogic’s market-leading Fibre Channel and Converged Network adapters are optimized for all major I/O virtualization standards, helping enterprises reduce total cost of ownership while increasing flexibility. As a member of the Open Virtualization Alliance, QLogic is working with key members of this ecosystem to deliver open source virtualization technologies that exploit the strengths of the new KVM standard in the marketplace.”
--  Satish Lakshmanan, Senior Director of Marketing, Host Solutions Group, QLogic

“Virtual Open Systems aims an effective embedded virtualization support for System-on-Chip, leading the open source KVM development for the new generation of ARM Cortex-A15 SoCs. As a supporting member of the Open Virtualization Alliance, the company plays an important role for a KVM wide potential recognition. In addition Virtual Open Systems is a partner of the Virtical European collaborative project, on virtualization heterogeneous multi-core embedded systems, supported by the European Commission.”
– Daniel Raho, CEO, Virtual Open Systems

“Being a member of the Open Virtualization Alliance supports VKernel’s mission to provide heterogeneous virtualization management.  Given the continued proliferation of virtualization and the evolving dynamics around pricing and licensing, we are seeing a dramatic increase in customer interest in multi-hypervisor environments and a specific interest in Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.”
-- Bryan Semple, Chief Marketing Officer, VKernel