On Thursday, the OpenVZ Project will release its kernel for Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, said project officials.

OpenVZ, a scaled-down, open-source version of SWSoft Inc.'s Virtuozzo technology, is operating-system-level virtualization technology built on Linux. It allows users to create isolated, virtual private servers on a single physical server to improve server utilization. Each virtual server can be rebooted independently.

The OpenVZ Project is also in discussions with Red Hat Inc. to incorporate OpenVZ into Red Hat's Linux distribution, said Kirill Kolyshkin, who heads the project. The main goal, however, is to incorporate OpenVZ into the mainstream Linux kernel, Kolyshkin said.

Red Hat Inc. and Novell are also integrating the Xen open-source virtualization technology from XenSource Inc. into their Linux distributions.

The OpenVZ project sees its technology as complementary to Xen. While OpenVZ can run multiple copies, or instances, of the same operating system on the same server, Xen enables multiple operating systems to run on a single server. So OpenVZ could theoretically be used within the Xen domain, Kolyshkin said.

"We consider that we're working on the same goal to show people how virtualization can be used in their environments and how it can help them," Kolyshkin said.

Novell officials were not available for comment.