The Linux Foundation declares OVA as collaborative project

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND: The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development announces the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) is becoming a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.

More than 250 companies are members of OVA and will contribute to and guide the Collaborative Project at The Linux Foundation. Governing board members include HP, IBM, Intel Corporation, NetApp and Red Hat, who will be joining other community members this week at KVM Forum in Edinburgh.

"The Open Virtualization Alliance is a natural addition to our Collaborative Projects and we're very happy to support all virtualization technologies that help advance Linux," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation.

OVA was originally founded two years ago to help advance adoption of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor by providing education, best practices and technical advice to organizations. Since then KVM has become one of the fastest-growing virtualization technologies with 50 percent growth in deployments last year, according to IDC.

As a core component of the Linux kernel, KVM has grown in popularity among businesses and open source communities such as OpenStack in just the last couple of years.

"The Linux Foundation hosts some of the most important technology efforts in the software industry today. It is also widely known for its ability to educate and advocate for those technologies. By moving to The Linux Foundation as a Collaborative Project, OVA will gain expertise and an extended network that will benefit KVM for the long run," said Al Gillen, program VP, System Software, IDC.

As a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project, OVA will continue to advance KVM through increased marketing, education and advocacy. The Linux Foundation is recognized for its functional expertise in helping to educate users and developers about advanced technologies, and its neutral and established position will further support KVM and the companies that support it.

The move for OVA to become a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project will maximize reach and further increase understanding of KVM for companies looking to adopt open virtualization technologies.

KVM is an open source virtualization solution used to support multiple architectures such as x86, as well as major operating systems including Linux and Windows. KVM converts the Linux kernel into a bare metal hypervisor and leverages the advanced features of the processors it runs on, delivering leadership performance levels.