Red Hat's virtualization journey: innovation in an evolving landscape

Significant shifts in the virtualization landscape have led many organizations to re-evaluate their strategies across datacenters, edge environments and the cloud.

We understand that many customers are facing substantial licensing cost increases from traditional virtualization providers, which has raised concerns about vendor lock-in and future expenses. While many organizations have used their current virtualization platforms for years,  pricing model changes have caused many to reconsider their existing investments.  

Choosing the right virtualization platform that suits your needs means selecting a trusted software vendor with a proven virtualization track record that can handle the migration of your critical applications while offering a clear path for future innovations.

Red Hat has been building virtualization solutions for nearly 2 decades

Red Hat's journey into virtualization began in 2008 with the strategic integration of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) directly into Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). KVM allows Linux to function as a hypervisor and offers a highly stable, resource-efficient and cost-effective way to run multiple isolated guest operating systems (OSs) on a single physical server. 

Building on this robust and open foundation, Red Hat then launched Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization in 2010, offering organizations a comprehensive and compelling open alternative to traditional hypervisors (Red Hat Virtualization maintenance support ended on August 31, 2024. Full details can be found here).

The cloud era

By the early 2010s, companies shifted their perspective and were seeking to take advantage of the cloud to help scale their infrastructure. Enterprises began to look beyond server virtualization towards building scalable cloud infrastructures, while Red Hat continued to champion open source alternatives to meet evolving IT demands.

The OpenStack project was founded by NASA and Rackspace to create an open source software platform for building and managing public and private clouds. Red Hat first started contributing to the project in 2011, and it remains a crucial asset today for organizations, particularly among enterprises seeking a stable, scalable and fully supported open source private cloud foundation.

Cloud computing’s rapid expansion drove other innovations. Seeking more agile and efficient methods to build and deploy software within scalable cloud environments, businesses and developers added containerization, enabling them to run many more applications simultaneously. Recognizing this shift, Red Hat introduced Red Hat OpenShift platform (2011), designed as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), providing developers a complete and streamlined environment to build, deploy, run and manage modern, container-ready applications in the cloud.

Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization: the best of both worlds

By 2016, the “RightScale State of the Cloud Report” indicated that 71% of organizations were adopting hybrid cloud strategies. While virtualization remained a significant IT technology, the rapid growth of cloud-native container applications presented a growing management challenge.

To address this, Red Hat initiated the open-source KubeVirt project in late 2016. Its goal was to unify container and virtual machine (VM) management, enabling teams to oversee both technologies on a single platform and eliminate the need for separate infrastructures. Building directly on KubeVirt's pioneering technology (which uses KVM as its hypervisor), Red Hat launched Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization in 2019 as a virtualization function within Red Hat OpenShift. OpenShift Virtualization offers a unified, scalable platform for migrating and managing VMs alongside containerized workloads. 

Demonstrating a commitment to flexible, open solutions in today's dynamic climate, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization has strategically expanded its reach to meet customers where they are in their virtualization journey. Support on Amazon Web Services (AWS) was introduced in 2023 and, as of 2025, OpenShift Virtualization is now supported on major public cloud provider platforms, including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This broad support provides customers the crucial flexibility and choice to deploy and manage OpenShift Virtualization across all leading public clouds. Additionally, Red Hat introduced OpenShift Virtualization Engine in early 2025 as a dedicated option for users who are solely focused on migrating and managing their virtual machines. Red Hat is continuously aligning to users’ dynamic needs and providing options that support their unique virtualization journeys.     

Red Hat: a proven virtualization innovator

With nearly 2 decades of virtualization leadership, Red Hat is uniquely positioned to address immediate virtualization needs through OpenShift Virtualization and provide a clear path for future innovation with cloud-native applications on OpenShift. Our deep understanding of the current virtualization landscape, combined with our focus on enabling future innovations like containerization, hybrid cloud and even AI with OpenShift, offers organizations the agility and assurance required for their evolution.

To learn more about Red Hat’s approach and solutions for your virtualization journey, explore the available options with Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, or contact your Red Hat or partner sales representative directly.