Linux Foundation to Host the Cloud Hypervisor Project, Creating a Performant, Lightweight Virtual Machine Monitor for Modern Cloud Workloads

Small in footprint and written in Rust, the Cloud Hypervisor project moves the needle for datacenter workload operations.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., December 8, 2021 -The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced it will host the Cloud Hypervisor project, which delivers a Virtual Machine Monitor for modern Cloud workloads. Written in Rust with a strong focus on security, features include CPU, memory and device hot plug; support for running Windows and Linux guests; device offload with vhost-user; and a minimal and compact footprint.

The project is supported by Alibaba, ARM, ByteDance, Intel and Microsoft and represented by founding member constituents that include Arjan van de Ven, Fellow at Intel; K. Y Srinivasan, Distinguished Engineer and VP at Microsoft; Michael Zhao, Staff Engineer at ARM; Gerry Liu, Senior Staff Engineer at Alibaba; and Felix Zhang, Senior Software Engineer at ByteDance. Initial focus for the Cloud Hypervisor project will be security and modern operation for Cloud.

“Cloud Hypervisor has grown to the point of moving to the neutral governance of The Linux Foundation,” said Arjan van de Ven, Intel Fellow and founding technical sponsor for the project. “We created the project to provide a more secure and updated VMM to optimize for modern cloud workloads. With fewer device models and a modern, more secure language, Cloud Hypervisor offers security and performance optimized for today’s cloud needs.”

“Modern cloud workloads require better security, and the Cloud Hypervisor project is intentionally designed to focus on this critical area,” said Mike Dolan, senior vice president and general manager of Projects at the Linux Foundation. “We’re looking forward to supporting this project community, both as it begins to build and to put the proper governance structures in place to sustain it for years to come.”

K.Y Srinivasan, Advisory Board member from Microsoft adds:

“Cloud Hypervisor has matured to the point that moving it to the Linux Foundation is the right move at the right time. As LF continues to standardize key components of the software stack for managing/orchestrating modern workloads, we feel that the Cloud Hypervisor will be an important part of the overall stack. Being part of LF will help us accelerate development and adoption of this key technology.”

To get involved, please visit https://www.cloudhypervisor.org/

Additional Supporting Comments

Alibaba

“Cloud Hypervisor is a great innovation project and evolves rapidly. Moving it to Linux Foundation will help to build a stronger community and speed up the adoption,” said Jiang “Gerry” Liu, Alibaba.

ARM

“Joining a foundation would be quite beneficial for the future development of Cloud Hypervisor. Compared to other similar foundations, Linux Foundation is the best choice to join,” said Michael Zhao at ARM.

ByteDance

“Cloud Hypervisor helps us build a more secure and lightweight cloud infrastructure. Joining the Linux Foundation can make more developers and organizations benefit from this technology,” said Yu “Felix” Zhang, ByteDance.

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

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