The Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), a consortium committed to fostering the adoption of open virtualization technologies, including Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), today announced that it is experiencing rapid growth in participation from companies focused on cloud computing and emerging markets around the globe.

KVM provides unique advantages for companies looking for an open alternative for building cloud deployments and in emerging markets where cost and freedom from vendor lock-in are key criteria in selecting a virtualization solution. With these advantages offered by KVM, the OVA has gained particular traction and participation from cloud and emerging markets-focused technology companies in the recent months since its establishment.

More than 50 percent of OVA members are focused on cloud computing, and virtualization is a key component of every cloud. Efficiency, flexibility and reliability are key attributes that cloud providers need to deliver to their customers. By supporting open virtualization and KVM, cloud companies can reduce costs, increase virtual machine density, improve performance, harden security and deploy highly scalable and reliable clouds.

OVA membership is also growing significantly among companies in new global regions, including Asia Pacific and Latin America. Businesses in growth markets need to be able to start fast and quickly scale their operations with minimum investment. Mirroring the rapid adoption of Linux and other open source technologies in emerging markets, the low cost, high quality and increased choice provided by open virtualization and KVM is enabling technology companies from Brazil to Japan to help clients virtualize and optimize their infrastructure.

"The tremendous growth in OVA membership is a very encouraging sign of the interest and potential for KVM in emerging markets and in the cloud, where open virtualization is poised to be a key technology. Over 200 members in three months is a rapid pace and really builds a solid foundation for a robust alliance," said Gary Chen, research manager, Enterprise Virtualization Software at IDC. "With such a solid, and still growing, member base, it will be interesting to see what kind of output and influence the alliance can generate in the near future to promote KVM."

"We've worked closely with OVA member Autonomic Resources to create a new business and analytics platform using a combination of open source cloud and virtualization technologies," said James Ellis, director, Office of Survey Support & Application Management at the US Energy Information Administration. "With this solution, we're reducing costs, advancing technology capabilities, introducing standards-based computing and driving toward our goal of attaining our Cloud First policy. With KVM as the base of our platform, we're reaching new levels of performance and scalability for our systems."

More than 200 technology companies have joined the OVA in total, delivering over a 20-fold growth in members since its launch three months ago.

At its launch in May 2011, the OVA founding members included BMC Software, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat and SUSE. The consortium announced the addition of 65 members in June 2011 and today builds on this fast-growing membership with the addition of 134 new members, including: 6WIND, AccelOps, Acronis, ACT750, aiCache, Aleux, ALOG Datacenters do Brasil, Alphinat, Altern-IT, Appnovation, AppZero, Authernative, Avere, Bacula Systems, Balidea, Bloombase, Bobcares, Broadcom, CA Technologies, Canonical, Centec Networks, Chelsio, CiRBA, ClassCat Co., Ltd., CloudPassage, CloudRows, CloudShare, Cloudsoft Corporation, Cloudspace, Colfax International, ComputeNext, Coraid, CoreDial, LLC, coreFusion, CumuLogic, Cybera, DataStax, DCH LLC, Defcon-IT, Dyn, Eaton, ElasticHosts, ElasticStack, Emulex, Endace, Ennoia Systems, Exelanz, Exetra ICT, FOSS-Group GmbH, Fujitsu, Guida Advisory, HelpSystems, Hitachi, Hitachi Data Systems, Igelamerica, Infosim, InfraStacks, LLC, Interface Masters Technologies, IPe, iSencia, IT Linux, Jambu, Jaspersoft, Jinfonet Software, Jinny Software, Joyent, JW Electronic Co. Ltd., K35, Kamp.de, Leading Edge, Linbit, LinuxIT, m2mi, Mamatec, Manage Operations MO, ManageIQ, Mellanox Technologies LTD., Midokura, MiTAC International Corp., MKNOD, NEC, Neebula, NetApp, Net Direct Systems, NetView, Netweb Technologies, Nexenta, NoLogin, Nubefy, Obsidian Systems, OnApp, op5 AB, OpenCrowd, OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA), Persistent Systems, Platform Computing, PLX Technology, Pragmatech Solutions Inc., Puppet Labs, QLogic, QNAP, Quest Software, Radware, RAID Inc., Raima, ReasonNet b.v., Savant Tecnologia da Informacao, ScaleMP, ScaleXtreme, SecludIT, Securelinx, Silicom, Silver Peak Systems, SkyLinux, Soporte Libre, Sourcefire, Splunk, StreamWIDE, Sublime IP, Summan, System Fabric Works, Texas Memory Systems, Tripwire, Unitrends, VaraLogix, Virtensys, Virtual Open Systems, Vision Solutions, Vizuri, VKernel, WiKID Systems, Inc., Xsigo and Zenoss.

With one of its goals to foster the development of best practices around KVM, work has begun amongst participating members of the Open Virtualization Alliance to create and publish KVM-specific documentation. Through the Open Virtualization Alliance's call for papers, members can submit best practices, performance and optimization resources, tips and tricks, technical whitepapers, case studies and solution summaries.

KVM is also establishing a footprint with leading virtualization benchmark performance results. For example, of the seventeen SPECvirt 2010 benchmark results published at http://www.spec.org , ten were achieved using KVM technology, including the highest performance benchmark overall and the highest number of performant virtual machines running on a single host.

For more information about the Open Virtualization Alliance and its members, visit www.openvirtualizationalliance.org .

For more information about joining the Open Virtualization Alliance, visit http://www.openvirtualizationalliance.org/contact/ .