Red Hat and Microsoft get virtually compatible

published 8 October 2009

Red Hat and Microsoft are finally playing together nicely, allowing each other's operating systems to work in their virtualised environments.

The companies first came together in February of this year, agreeing they would work together to support each other's systems due to customer demand, but it has taken until now for the goal to be realised.

Windows Server can now run on Red Hat Virtualisation and in turn Red Hat Linux can run on Microsoft's Hyper V.

Customers are now able to use both Microsoft's Windows Server and Red Hat's Enterprise Linux in a combined virtualised environment.

Steve Brasen, principal analyst at Enterprise Management Associates, said in a statement: "IT administrators supporting heterogeneous infrastructures certainly understand the pain of having to deal with multiple independent technical support organisations."

He added: "With this announcement, Red Hat and Microsoft are ensuring their customers can resolve any issues regardless of whether the problem is related to the operating system or the virtualisation implementation."

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.