XVM consists of two components: xVM Server, a hypervisor with support for Linux, Solaris and Windows guest operating systems; and xVM Ops Center, a management console. The Ops Center project will be released under the open source GPLv3 license, and Sun has set up a community site for xVM information.

"Our engagement with the community is not something we take lightly," Schwartz said. "It is in every way the foundation of our company."

The news comes just days after Oracle unveiled its own virtualization product, Oracle VM, which, like xVM Server, is based on the open source Xen hypervisor project. Both companies join a crowded market dominated by leader VMWare.

Sun said it intends to put $2 billion behind its vXM push. Ops Center, which is expected to be available next month, has already been validated to run on 1,000 system configurations, according to Sun.

Sun's VP of software, Rich Green, characterized Ops Center as "a complete suite of data center automation technology" with an interface easy for less-skilled users to work with. "Not everyone is a hardcore UNIX admin," said Sun's Steve Wilson, who demoed Ops Center for the crowd.

Sun said a broad array of companies has endorsed xVM, including AMD, Intel, mySQL, Symantec, Quest Software and Red Hat.

Also Wednesday, Dell CEO Michael Dell joined Schwartz onstage to announce the company has agreed to a deal to distribute Sun's Solaris 10 operating system on its PowerEdge servers. "I'd like to believe Dell is going to have a much different conversation now with the Solaris installed base," Schwartz said.