IBM launches development and test cloud utilizing Red Hat technology

North Carolina: Red Hat, one of the world's leading provider of open source solutions, has announced that IBM has selected Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization as a platform in its new cloud computing service for development and test.

"Our decade-long partnership with Red Hat has always been focused on customer value and innovation. Today, we are extending this partnership to include cloud computing - broadening our reach and answering the strong customer demand for cloud computing services," said Maria Azua, Vice President of Cloud Computing Enablement at IBM. "Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is an optimal hypervisor technology for the infrastructure offerings on the IBM cloud."

Red Hat first announced plans to deliver Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization in February 2009 to help address customer concerns about virtualization, such as performance, scalability and security. In November 2009, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers was released, providing customers with a new, fully featured, cost-effective choice in the virtualization market. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization offers some of the industry's latest technology, enabling enterprise adoption of virtualization and the deployment of open cloud computing infrastructures.

"Customers are expected to benefit significantly from the collaboration of IBM and Red Hat in enterprise virtualization and cloud computing," said Scott Crenshaw, Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat. "Together, Red Hat and IBM aim to break down barriers to virtualization and cloud adoption by providing customers with a stable and robust environment to meet their enterprise applications requirements. We believe that combining Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization software with IBM's server, storage and network hardware, plus IBM's well-known enterprise support and services, as the foundational components of IBM's cloud infrastructure offers a compelling application environment for customers."