The mission of the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA) is to foster the adoption of KVM as an open virtualization alternative, accelerate the emergence of an ecosystem of third-party solutions around KVM, increase overall awareness and understanding of KVM, encourage interoperability, promote best practices and highlight examples of customer successes. Founding members of the Open Virtualization Alliance include BMC Software, Eucalytpus Systems, HP, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, Inc. and SUSE.

Today stepping stone GmbH has joined the OVA during the first expansion round. Other companies, that have joined today: Abiquo, AdaptiveComputing, Afore Solutions, Arista Networks, Arkeia, autonomicresources, B1 Systems, BlueCat Networks, Brocade, Carbon 14 Software, Cfengine, CheapVPS, Cloud Cruiser, CloudSigma, CloudSwitch, CodeFutures, CohesiveFT, Collax GmbH, Convirture, Corensic, Dell, enstratus, EnterpriseDB, Everis Inc., Fujitsu Frontech, FusionIO, Gluster, Inc., Grid Dynamics, Groundwork Open Source, HexaGrid Computing, IDT us, Infinite Technologies, Information Builders, Killer Beaver, LLC, Likewise, Mindtree Ltd, MontaVista Software, Morph Labs, nanoCloud, Neocoretech, Nicira Networks, Nimbula, novastorm, One Convergence, OpenNebula / C12G Labs, Providence Software (XVT), Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH, Qindel, RisingTide Systems, ScaleOut Software, Sep Software, Shadow Soft, Smartscale, StackOps, stepping stone GmbH, Storix, UC4, Unilogik, Univention, Usharesoft, Virtual Bridges, Vyatta, Weston Software Inc, XebiaLabs and Zmanda.

KVM is being developed since 2006 and has been included in the Linux Kernel since the version 2.6.20 (February 2007). The KVM virtualization support among others the following guest operating systems: Windows NT, XP, 2000, 2008, Server 2003 and 2008, Vista, 7 as well as many Linux distributions, Open-, Free- and NetBSD, Android 2.2 and many others.