In the past months virtualization.info highlighted several times how Cisco is silently using KVM as an alternative virtualization platform to VMware.
We always wondered why, considering the investment that Cisco made on VMware.
Now, finally we have an answer to give: Cisco invested in Qumranet too.
Qumranet is the startup that developed and maintained KVM up to the moment it was acquired by Red Hat.
And that’s why Red Hat had a minor but very relevant position during the launch of the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) despite its virtualization offering is pretty weak now.
The fact that Cisco invested in Qumranet is not widely known and we had to admit that even virtualization.info overlooked this key information so far.
How the investment links Cisco to Red Hat is not clear but it’s easy to guess that the upcoming Red Hat new virtualization portfolio based on KVM will have an early chance to be bundled with UCS.
Now VirtualLogix, the mobile virtualization startup where Cisco invested along with Intel, is the next most interesting company to watch.