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Virtuozzo to build full container stack, target the data centre

Adopts KVM, plans own Linux distro and software-defined storage product

Virtuozzo is going to build a comprehensive stack of tech for containerised computing.

The company is the server virtualisation bits of the now-devolved Parallels, which kept its name for a spin-out devoted to desktop hypervisors. The company's cloud automation assets were sold to Ingram Micro and the Plesk service desk business also spun out to go it alone.

As was Virtuozzo, a business that offered virtualisation software most-often-deployed by service providers to deliver dedicated cloudy servers. Virtuozzo's wares were, however, more akin to containers than virtual machines because it offered the ability to offer virtual servers that shared an operating system. That approach gathered a few enterprise customers, but on Parallels' watch the products were targeted at service providers

Docker's since come along and made containers rather prominent, but not in the way Virtuzzo wielded them. But that's not stopping the latter company deciding it needs to get better at Docker-style containers while also having a waft at the data centre.

In a chat with The Register, Virtuozzo CEO Rob Lovell said the company has engaged in “deep discussions” with Docker about interoperability and integration with the aim being to have Virtuozzo “able to support Docker apps and lifecycle apps.” Virtuozzo will ensure it's a decent platform for microservices, but will otherwise stick to its knitting as a platform for hosting more traditional applications. Lovell said shops running 1000 Linux servers are the target, with the aim being to give such organisations the chance to bring the apps they run into a containerised environment.

Along the way, Virtuozzo will drop its proprietary hypervisor and instead adopt KVM, which Lovell thinks will do rather better as a host for Docker than other hypervisors.

A home-brew Linux distribution (based on CentOS) is on the cards, to host the lot.

Lovell also plans to build a standalone software-defined storage product, a field in which he reckons his company has decent tech that just hasn't been exposed to customers. Plans for that product call for compatibility with Amazon's S3 and JBODs as the underlying storage systems.

All those projects add up to a reasonably deep data centre stack, and that's where Lovell wants to be: in the thick of it rather than on the service provider fringe. The reasons for the change are simple: Lovell is putting Virtuzzo into a bigger market where he hopes there's more cash to be harvested. ®

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