This article was published on February 20, 2012

Microsoft in talks to reinstate Hyper-V into OpenStack


Microsoft in talks to reinstate Hyper-V into OpenStack

Here’s a fact: Microsoft wants its hypervisor (or virtual machine manager, if you must) to be an option in OpenStack, a Linux-based Infrastructure-As-A-Service computing project that is driven by RackSpace and NASA. If that made no sense, let me try again: A Linux project removed Microsoft’s virtualization tool, and the Redmond-based software giant wants it back in.

So long as one of those attempts made sense, we’ll move on. Here’s the skinny: Microsoft joined OpenStack in October of 2011. However, in the upcoming edition of the project, called ‘Essex,’ Microsoft’s Hyper-V (its hypervisor) was pulled, being dubbed ‘dead wood’ as it was not seeing sufficient development activity.

Oh, snap.

However, the removal appears to be potentially temporary – with Microsoft working with the OpenStack crew to solve the issue. In talks with The Register, Mark Collier, the founder of OpenStack called the exclusion “more a bump in the road than an internal decision to move away from it.” Microsoft is in talks with OpenStack to be reinstated.

Collier sees a future for Hyper-V in OpenStack: “I think over the long run you will see a number of different hypervisors including Hyper-V. This was an unexpected bump in the road rather than a U-turn. They have approached us and asked if could we put our heads together and come up with a plan. We are more than happy to help anybody make their technology part of OpenStack.” This seems like an issue that Microsoft could solve with an investment of its internal resources to ensure that its product is well situated inside the project.

Microsoft fighting to be included in a Linux package? Welcome to today’s technology world.

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