Information contained in this news release is current as of the date of the press announcement, but may be subject to change without prior notice.
September 13, 2012
Hitachi, Ltd.
Red Hat K.K.
Running multiple instances of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its standard virtualization technology, Kernel-based Virtual Machine, on top of Hitachi's logical partitioning feature Virtage enables the new cloud environment with inter-tenant isolation
Tokyo, September 13, 2012 --- Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501, “Hitachi”) and Red Hat K.K. (“Red Hat”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Red Hat, Inc. today announced that Hitachi has developed a technology that allows running multiple instances of server virtualization software on a PC server for the first time in the world and it started providing highly reliable and efficient virtualization solutions collaborating with Red Hat's technology for virtualization and cloud computing.
Specifically, Hitachi has added new functions to its logical partitioning (“LPAR”*2) feature Virtage*3, which is available on Hitachi's BladeSymphony*4 server line, and confirmed that the new Virtage is able to stably run multiple instances of server virtualization software on top of LPARs. This is feasible for multi-tenant*5 style cloud computing environments because it can isolate the effects of load level fluctuation and faults between tenants by assigning an isolated LPAR for each tenant and running server virtualization software (hypervisor*6) on each LPAR, and it allows integrating multi-tenant systems into a server efficiently.
Hitachi and Red Hat have finished formal verification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including its integrated Kernel-based Virtual Machine (“KVM”) virtualization technology*7, running on top of Hitachi's Virtage*3, running on the BladeSymphony server line. As a result, Red Hat has designated Hitachi's BladeSympohony server line as an officially certified Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment, including its KVM hypervisor.
Hitachi will start selling server blades with Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM Virtage installed from September 14 for Japanese market. Furthermore, Hitachi establishes a “Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM on LPAR Solution Center,” which will offer evaluation environment and pre-sales consultation. Hitachi plans to develop new virtualization solutions using the products and services through this center's activity.
In order to meet the strong interest in today's companies to reduce total cost of ownership, many IT users are turning to server virtualization to consolidate their systems. This trend is especially strong in evolving cloud computing environments, where server virtualization is regarded as indispensable. In private cloud systems, where virtual machines (“VMs”) belonging to multiple divisions or departments are often mixed on a single server, it is essential to maintain VM performance regardless of variation in load, and to have a high level of security between VMs to isolate them from potential failures in other VMs. For this reason, system administrators often choose to deploy a new physical server for different group of users, even when the server still has capacity for additional VMs.
Hitachi first introduced the logical partitioning feature, Virtage, for its BladeSymphony server line in 2006, leveraging Hitachi's experience in mainframe virtualization combining with hardware based virtualization assistance feature Intel® Virtualization Technology. Virtage is widely used in enterprise systems for its near hardware level stability.
Red Hat has been leading virtualization technology with its KVM development and providing high-quality commercial support for KVM via Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. While taking full advantage of being contained in the Linux kernel*8 code base, KVM keeps evolving by utilizing the latest Linux technology, such as adapting to new hardware and memory management. KVM in conjunction with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization platforms is also useful to attain affordable and reliable virtualization environments.
Today's announcement allows Virtage users to utilize both Hitachi LPAR's near hardware level stability and isolation, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM's high performance, industry-leading virtualization features and high-level Linux compatibility. Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM on LPAR addresses the problem of security and isolation in multi-tenant VM services environments, reducing the need for additional server platforms and lowering power consumption.
In addition, because the size of the LPAR resource can be varied on demand within the server hardware, the possibility is opened for a totally new style of cloud service based on hosting Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM environment within virtualized hardware of optimized size.
Today, Hitachi established the “Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM on LPAR Solution Center,” located inside the Hitachi Harmonious Competence Center in Tokyo, to promote the new system configurations and to encourage potential users. This center will work primarily with cloud service providers to create high-density and highly energy efficient cloud platforms by providing Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM on LPAR environments for evaluation, demonstrating the advantage and offering technical consultation. Evaluation opportunities are also open to software vendors who are interested in the solutions.
Hitachi and Red Hat plan to continue working together and aim to offer more sophisticated solutions and services by combining both companies' advantages. Furthermore, Hitachi and Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, plan to jointly develop solutions that will utilize Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM on LPAR technology to meet customer requirements in the global marketplace.
“Intel welcomes Hitachi and Red Hat's announcement on their new virtualization solution. Intel is delighted that Intel has also contributed to this accomplishment through Intel® Virtualization Technology. Intel strongly believes that this solution opens a new era of cloud computing. Intel keeps trying to realize cloud environment with higher efficiency and higher security.”
Virtage is the Hitachi's original server logical partitioning feature available on BladeSymphony server line. It offers high performance and highly reliable logical server environment just like physical servers, and hence suitable for enterprise use.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux integrates the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor, which is also integrated into the Linux kernel. KVM is an open source-based technology that was first unveiled in October 2006 and then incorporated to Linux kernel within months. It was developed by Qumranet, which was acquired by Red Hat in September 2008. Since then, KVM has been evolving by adapting to new processors and devices and incorporating features such as large-size memory management. Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM also holds the leading 2-socket, 4-socket and 8-socket benchmark scores on the industry-standard, vendor-independent SPECvirt_sc2010 virtualization benchmark, and is now widely employed in many public and private cloud environments.
Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2011 (ended March 31, 2012) consolidated revenues totaled 9,665 billion yen ($117.8 billion). Hitachi is focusing more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, industrial, transportation and urban development systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them.
For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.
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SPEC®, SPECvirt™, and SPECvirt_sc® are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC). Reported leadership in the SPECvirt_sc2010 benchmark reflects results published on as of September 1, 2012. For more information and the latest SPECvirt_sc2010 results visit http://www.spec.org/virt_sc2010/.
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