The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development, today announced 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.

"While hosting code and providing open source governance best practices is a big part of what we offer, we're also happy to provide guidance to organizations that want to reduce operating costs, maximize promotional reach and increase participation among diverse stakeholders," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. "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."

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," said Al Gillen, Program VP, System Software, IDC. "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."

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.

"The Linux Foundation offers unique expertise in hosting multi-company collaborative efforts and bridging the world of development to businesses. It's a natural fit for us to work closely together to leverage its promotional reach, expertise in running these organizations and in reaching and educating Linux and cloud users throughout the world," said Chuck Dubuque, board chair, Open Virtualization Alliance.

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.

Recent KVM highlights include:

• Additional Red Hat KVM leadership performance results published using the new SPECvirt_sc2013 benchmark
• NetApp joining the OVA Board as a fifth governing member
• Establishment of KVM Centers of Excellence by OVA governing member IBM in Beijing and New York

For more information about the Open Virtualization Alliance and to get involved, please visit: http://www.openvirtualizationalliance.org/

For supporting comments about the news, please visit: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements