VMware  announced plans to support paravirtualized Linux and Solaris x86 operating systems in future releases of VMware virtual infrastructure platform products -- Workstation, GSX Server and ESX Server. With support for more than 60 x86-based operating systems, VMware platform products support the industry's broadest set of operating systems. This broad support gives customers more choice when using virtualization to lower the cost of managing multiple operating system environments.

VMware is adding support for paravirtualized Linux operating systems as they become adopted in commercial operating system distributions across its virtual infrastructure platform products. Paravirtualized Linux operating systems are modified operating systems that are specifically optimized to run in a virtual environment. This gives customers the choice of running both unmodified and paravirtualized operating systems, with or without assistance from underlying processor technologies, concurrently on the same virtualization platform.

 By supporting both unmodified and paravirtualized Linux operating systems, VMware is extending its industry leadership in providing high performance virtualization for the broadest choice of x86-based operating systems. VMware is also adding support for the Solaris x86 operating system across its virtual infrastructure products. Enterprises with mixed environments may now securely deploy and manage any combination of Linux, NetWare, Solaris x86 and Windows and instances across the same VMware virtualization platform, achieving higher system utilization and greater management efficiencies.

"VMware's support for paravirtualized Linux and Solaris x86 operating systems and our experience with enabling virtual operating environments for more than 10,000 enterprise server customers is consistent with our continued commitment to give customers greater choice," said Jeffrey Engelmann, executive vice president of marketing at VMware. "With more options available, customers can transition a larger portion of their data center workloads to a virtual infrastructure and thereby benefit from the proven ROI of a virtual operating environment."

VMware's support for these additional operating systems means more customers can gain additional leverage from using VMware's management software VirtualCenter with VMotion technology across heterogeneous operating system environments. This further extends the applicability of VMware virtual infrastructure as an enterprise-wide strategy.

Virtual infrastructure provides a layer of abstraction between the computing, storage and networking hardware and the software that runs on it. By creating a uniform virtual hardware platform, virtual infrastructure allows software to be installed on or moved from any industry-standard physical system to another without requiring reconfiguration of the software, operating system or applications. Virtual infrastructure makes existing resources more efficient and flexible, and drives down the cost of IT.