Citrix Systems announced “Project Kensho,” which will deliver Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) tools that allow independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprise IT managers to create hypervisor-independent, portable enterprise application workloads. These tools will allow application workloads to be imported and run across Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and VMware ESX virtual environments.

As virtualization becomes a mainstream component of enterprise IT infrastructure, users need ways to automate and secure the lifecycle of their application workloads without being tied to a single hypervisor platform or virtual hard disk format. By implementing the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) OVF standard, Project Kensho will enable ISVs and enterprise IT staff to leverage a hypervisor-independent portable virtual machine format that packages a complete application workload as a secure, portable, pre-configured open standard virtual appliance. This will solve a multitude of interoperability issues between virtualization platforms while allowing automated provisioning and management of applications, rather than just virtual machines. Users will be able to easily install and use any OVF packaged application workload regardless of which virtualization platform they use – whether it be XenServer, Hyper-V, or ESX.

“XenServer delivers the benefits of fast, free, ubiquitous and compatible virtualization, whether from Citrix, Microsoft or VMware,” said Simon Crosby, CTO of the Virtualization and Management Division, Citrix Systems. “Project Kensho highlights the Citrix commitment to interoperability for virtualization, while maximizing price/performance and richness of features at the virtual infrastructure level.”

The OVF specification was originally co-authored by Citrix and VMware, with contributions from Dell, HP, IBM and Microsoft. The companies then jointly submitted the draft to the DMTF standardization process.

Added Value for Microsoft Hyper-V
Project Kensho will also enable customers to leverage the interoperability benefits and compatibility between long-time partners Citrix and Microsoft to extend the Microsoft platform. For example, XenServer is enhanced with CIM-based management APIs to allow any DMTF-compliant management tool to manage XenServer, including Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager. And because the tools are based on a standards framework, customers are ensured a rich ecosystem of options for virtualization. In addition, because of the open-standard format and special licensing features in OVF, customers can seamlessly move their current virtualized workloads to either XenServer or Hyper-V, enabling them to distribute virtual workloads to the platform of choice while simultaneously ensuring compliance with the underlying licensing requirements for each virtual appliance.

Project Kensho will support the vision of the Citrix Delivery Center product family, helping customers transform static datacenters into dynamic “delivery centers” for the best performance, security, cost savings and business agility. The tools developed through Project Kensho will be integrated into Citrix Workflow Studio based orchestrations, for example, to provide an automated, environment for managing the import and export of applications from any major virtualization platform.

• An Open Virtual Machine Format for Cloud Portability