Oracle Buys Virtual Iron, Virtualization Management Startup Strengthening Oracle VM

Watch out VMware! Oracle buys Virtual Iron, terms undisclosed.

Founded in 2003, Virtual Iron provides cost-effective, production-ready server virtualization software for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The solutions deliver comparable capabilities to VMware without the cost and complexity. The company is led by an experienced management team and backed by top-tier investors including Highland Capital, Matrix Partners, Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital and SAP Ventures.

Market penetration of the virtualization market is still less than 10 percent with VMware controlling much of the market share.



Strategic Rationale for the deal:
• Adds advanced virtualization management technology to enhance Oracle VM
• Transaction expected to close this summer
• Virtual Iron is a provider of server virtualization management software
• Private company, headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts
• Virtual Iron’s software enables dynamic resource management in virtualized data
centers
• Proven implementations across industries such as government, healthcare, financial
services, IT software and service, manufacturing and communications
• Virtual Iron extends Oracle VM software to provide comprehensive and
dynamic resource management across the full stack
• Oracle VM’s scalable, high performance server virtualization capabilities provide high
availability and rapid deployment for Oracle’s comprehensive software stack
• Virtual Iron is expected to add advanced dynamic resource management automation
and streamlined virtualization server configuration capabilities to Oracle VM


Industry trends are driving demand for virtualization
• IT organizations need to reduce operating expenses without sacrificing quality of
service
• Enterprises want to shorten the time required to deploy or reconfigure applications
• Companies are seeking “Green” strategies to reduce their carbon footprints and
decrease their total power consumption
• Virtualization changes the way applications are deployed and managed
• Pre-built virtual machines enable faster application deployment and configuration
• High availability is delivered by default for all hosted application components
• Dynamic resource management and rules-based automation facilitates more efficient
management of application service levels
• Consistent with Oracle’s strategy to provide comprehensive full stack
enterprise management across the virtual and physical enterprise
• Oracle VM with Virtual Iron management technology is expected to provide more
comprehensive, dynamic resource management capabilities
• Expected to enhance Oracle Enterprise Manager to be more agile in meeting
application service levels in virtualized environments

Young Startup Virtual Server Management Company VKernel Raises $7M in Series B Funding

VKernel Secures $7M in Series B Funding.

VKernel Corporation, a provider of easy-to-use and quick-to-deploy virtual server management and optimization solutions, today announced it has closed a $7 million Series B round of funding.

"From the start, VKernel made the decision to take a different approach to this market using a high velocity sales and marketing strategy to offer low-cost, simple-to-use products that deliver instant value," said Alex Bakman, founder and CEO of VKernel. "As a result, we are quickly becoming a 'go-to' company for organizations wanting to optimize their virtual data center investments. This latest round of funding is validation of our strategy and our success to date."

Longworth Venture Partners, Hummer and Polaris are investors in Vkernel.

IT organizations should look for tools that will allow them to gain infrastructure performance, and ensuring that performance is delivered at the lowest possible cost.

BladeWatch: DataSynapse noted as a vendor for real-time infrastructure

"DataSynapse, the global provider of application virtualization software, announced today that Gartner listed it as a sample vendor for the real-time infrastructure (RTI) market in its recent “Hype Cycle for IT Operations Management, 2007” report. The report aims to separate “hype” from reality in the IT operations management space, which is crowded with vendors, solutions and processes that not only help enterprises achieve business results by delivering and managing mission-critical infrastructure and services, but also enable innovation. Gartner profiled RTI as an emerging technology that can significantly contribute to the success of IT operations management with its benefit rating of “transformational” and identified DataSynapse as a sample vendor."