Microsoft and China's CS2C Sign Cross-Platform Collaboration Agreement

Microsoft today signed a collaboration agreement with China Standard Software Corporation (CS2C), the country’s leading domestic Linux operating system provider, to jointly develop, market and sell solutions for the cloud-computing market in China.

The deal will help provide the mixed source infrastructure necessary to facilitate the rapid growth and change taking place across China, where cloud-based infrastructure is budding across cities and provinces.

The primary goal of this agreement, which was announced at a joint event in Beijing today, is to provide public and private cloud solutions to a diverse array of industries through a rich partner ecosystem.

The mixed source solutions stemming from this collaboration will be built on Microsoft’s Hyper-V Open Cloud architecture and will include support to run CS2C NeoKylin Linux Server products.

As Sandy Gupta, the General Manager for Microsoft’s Open Solutions Group, notes in his blog, Microsoft is working with CS2C to bring about a true, open architecture in the area of cloud management and automation for IT organizations throughout China.

“A cornerstone of this agreement is for CS2C-branded Linux servers to run under the Hyper-V Cloud architecture as a first class guest. CS2C and Microsoft will work together to enable CS2C Linux to run well on Hyper-V and be managed through Microsoft System Center,” Gupta says.

Microsoft and CS2C have also pledged to sponsor a joint virtual technology lab in Beijing for solution development and testing of cloud solutions that will allow customers to move to virtualization and a cloud-based IT infrastructure.

The lab will focus on the certification of CS2C NeoKylin Operating System on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, creating Microsoft Systems Center management packs for CS2C NeoKylin Operating System application workloads, and incorporating support for CS2C NeoKylin Operating System within the Hyper-V Cloud architecture.

As part of the collaboration, CS2C will also join the Interop Vendor Alliance, an established community of software and hardware vendors that have been working together to enhance interoperability with Microsoft systems.

In addition to establishing market and technology collaboration, the two companies have also signed a customer legal covenant agreement.

In line with Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to Interoperability, Gupta notes that “interoperable Linux and Windows offerings will empower customers to build solutions that will enable them to capitalize on opportunities to expand, grow and achieve the focus necessary to fuel innovation.”

Han Naiping, the president of CS2C, notes that this is an “important opportunity to collaborate with Microsoft to deliver comprehensive, flexible, cloud-based solutions that will serve as a platform for business growth.”

You can read more about this agreement on Sandy Gupta’s blog and in the press release.