Linux Pro Talks to Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst

Red Hat CEO and President, Jim Whitehurst was a guest today in Munich where he addressed the press on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, the cloud, and virtual desktop infrastructure.

One of the issues that Red Hat and therefore Whitehurst is currently peddling is their RHEV platform. After the purchase of Qumranetin 2008, Red Hat has had a major chip in the virtualization game and a direct handle on the KVM open source hypervisor.

Oracle

About a month ago Oracle debuted its Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, optimized for Oracle software and hardware. Many within the industry viewed Oracle's new kernel as an attempt to wall out other vendors and lock Oracle adopters into the platform. Oracle did allow that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 applications would run unchanged on the company's new kernel, but recommended a shift to the Unbreakable Kernel for maximum optimization.

Oracle's decision lead many to believe the relationship between the company and Red Hat were strained, an assumption Whitehurst is quick to correct. "We appreciate what they're for freedom and openness of Java. But the Open Solaris and MySQL thing was definitely not open source friendly."

RHEV, Delta Cloud and Messaging

Virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure and real-time messaging are high on Red Hat's priority list with RHEV 3.0 releasing next year. "We work one module after the other," said the CEO, "which brings us ever closer to the Microsoft-free solution for RHEV management."

Red Hat's Delta Cloud is an abstraction prevention API . With Delta Cloud in place, VMs can focus on managing their cloud environments rather than API changes and incompatibilities, across all major platforms, thus circumventing the much-dreaded vendor lock-in.

In November the German Frankfurt Exchange will take its new management system based on Red Hat live. "We have the fastest system for stock exchanges," said Whitehurst.

The Red Hat CEO also acknowledged that the customer landscape is changing: "A few years ago we had almost only companies with high technological standards and know-how in the IT industry, but now we get more customers for whom IT is only a means to an end. "said the CEO.

Virtual desktops?

When asked about the future of the desktop, Whitehurst was ambivalent, even under the heading of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). "VDIs are a crutch that we need. They are the symptom of a paradigm shift, an old infrastructure."