When you virtualise your servers, do you divide them by operating system, or is it practical to use a bare-metal hypervisor to support all your x86 operating systems? That's what Red Hat thinks is the best idea - which is why it thinks you would be better off virtualising using KVM, included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

With Reg users reporting that the cost of licenses, the problems of managing multiple platforms and virtual machine sprawl are hurdles to virtualisation, the enthusiasm for virtualisation - and the success of early efforts - creates its own problems.

But is KVM strictly for Linux specialists, or can it provide performance and management benefits for any datacentre? Red Hat's Bill Bauman joins Andrew Buss from Freeform Dynamics and Reg broadcast editor Tim Phillips to explain what KVM is, what type of performance improvements it delivers, who will feel the benefits, and what skills you need to deploy it.