Mandriva said Friday that its upcoming enterprise version of the Linux operating system will include the open-source OpenVZ virtualization software.

The Paris-based Linux distributor will embed OpenVZ into the kernel of Mandriva Corporate Server 4.0.

OpenVZ virtualizes the Linux operating system so that multiple virtual servers based on the same single operating system can run per machine. Virtuozzo, a commercial product created by SWSoft, is based on OpenVZ.

OpenVZ competes with the Xen virtualization technology. Xen, also originally an open-source project, is being embedded into Red Hat Linux and Suse Linux from Novell. Xen uses paravirtualization technology that, with the advent of features in the latest Intel and AMD processors, will allow servers to run a heterogeneous group of "guest" operating systems on top, including both Windows and Linux.

That is in contrast to OpenVZ, which can only run multiple versions of the same underlying operating system at the same time, though its backers claim the number of virtual servers OpenVZ can run simultaneously on a single machine tops Xen and other virtualization technologies.