During the peak of the technology infrastructure renewal cycle in 2007 interest in server virtualisation reached feverish proportions. A jump in adoption of virtualisation technologies across Australia’s medium to large enterprises from 18% to 35% in 2009 confirms that at least some of this hype has become reality. Unfortunately the level of active adoption remains well below a majority indicating that the demand for virtualisation is far from over.  Yet only 12% of firms view virtualisation as a high priority cost management strategy.It is in this climate, and citing customer demand drivers that Red Hat and Microsoft have signed respective virtualisation certification programs. In Australia’s heterogeneous, but Windows-dominated, data centres it is more than just Red Hat that stands to benefit. Local CIOs should begin to assess the current proliferation of virtualisation solutions to identify the opportunities for rationalisation. This specific agreement firmly validates access to technical support and viability of open source-based solutions for the enterprise.