Virtualization.com

News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

CA Technologies Buys ITKO For $330 Million In Cash

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CA Technologies today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Interactive TKO (ITKO), a provider of service simulation solutions for developing applications in composite and cloud environments, for $330 million in an all-cash transaction.

CA Technologies says the acquisition of ITKO will add a new dimension to modern IT management and extend it to encompass the entire service delivery lifecycle.

In particular, the acquisition should help its customers overcome the limitations of current organizational approaches, breaking down the silos across development, testing and operations.

For the trailing 12-month period ending March 31, 2011, ITKO reported revenue of approximately $39 million, more than doubling the prior 12-month period. For this same period, ITKO was profitable and generated positive cash flow.

The acquisition is expected to be completed within three months, pending regulatory approval.

At the close of the transaction, Shridhar Mittal, president and CEO of ITKO, will join CA Technologies as general manager of ITKO, a division of CA Technologies.

It is anticipated that all of ITKO’s approximately 120 employees will join CA Technologies.

AppSense’s User Virtualization Platform Selected For HP’s Client Virtualization Reference Architecture

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AppSense, provider of user virtualization solutions, today announced that its User Virtualization Platform is now a core building block of HP’s new Client Virtualization Reference Architecture.

Along with Microsoft, VMware and Citrix, AppSense User Virtualization has been recognized by HP as a crucial technology for a successful architecture that meets the goals for client virtualization.

With the HP Client Virtualization Reference Architecture, customers can achieve the goals of IT and workforce agility without compromising performance, operating costs, information security and user experience, which is AppSense’s area of focus.

AppSense User Virtualization is a software solution that enables user management across both physical and virtual desktops.

Former Microsoft Virtualization Director, DABCC Founder Start PaperShare

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David Greschler (co-founder of Softricity App-V, and until recently, director of virtualization and cloud strategy at Microsoft) and Doug Brown (founder of popular virtualization site DABCC) recently unveiled PaperShare, a community site specifically targeting people who are interested in gaining knowledge about the specific topic of virtualization and cloud computing.

Greschler is CEO, and Brown is CTO.

PaperShare aims to connect people with “information, individuals and companies they’re interested in” – creating a place where they find and share knowledge, interact with others, and do business together.

According to IT Knowledge Exchange, Edwin Yuen will replace Greschler as Microsoft’s director of virtualization and cloud strategy.

Like Greschler, Yuen also joined Microsoft as part of the Softricity acquisition, and he’s also been a public face of Hyper-V over the past few years.

Also check out VMblog’s Q&A with David Greschler and Doug Brown

Cloud.com Joins the NetApp Alliance Partner Program

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Cloud.com, a vendor of open source cloud computing software, has joined the NetApp Alliance Partner Program.

As part of this collaboration, Cloud.com CloudStack, an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform, seamlessly integrates with NetApp storage systems and simplifies how customers can build, deploy and manage public and private cloud environments, for improved IT flexibility and efficiency.

This integration with NetApp gives Cloud.com the ability to directly integrate with the NetApp OnCommand management software to help automate provisioning volumes on the storage system, create Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs) of administrator-specified sizes, and perform LUN masking.

Cloud.com has also integrated, tested, and validated CloudStack with NetApp unified storage systems, allowing customers to continue to use the NetApp Data ONTAP platform, which effectively creates and manages storage pools and devices requiring ever-increasing capacity and bandwidth.

Cloud.com currently enables over 50 large-scale production clouds in deployment that have been built on its market-leading open source cloud computing solution including KT, Tata Communications, Nokia Research Center, GreenQloud and Profitability.net.

Cloud.com technologies can be deployed on-premise or as hosted cloud services.

Flash Virtualization Company FlashSoft Secures $3 Million

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FlashSoft, the ‘Flash Virtualization Company’, launched with the announcement of its Series A funding of $3 million, led by Thomvest Ventures, and the introduction of the first commercial offering of software to enable enterprise flash as a cost-effective, server-tier computing resource.

The company’s product, called FlashSoft SE, is commercially available today and is already being used in business-critical production environments by several customers. FlashSoft SE is available for free evaluation through a 30-day “Try Before You Buy” program.

Flash technology has gained traction in enterprise computing due to its ability to reduce input/output (IO) latency, and to increase scalability and performance for databases, enterprise applications and virtualization environments.

Despite the performance advantages of flash SSD, two barriers have inhibited its adoption in the enterprise. First, when used as primary data storage, flash memory cannot easily integrate with and leverage the benefits of existing storage systems infrastructure. Secondly, storing all of an application’s data on server-attached flash memory remains expensive.

FlashSoft SE is the first commercially available, all-software “tier minus one” solution for Flash Virtualization.

Enterprise IT can now provide databases, applications and virtual machine environments with the performance benefit of having the entire data set on flash, with only a fraction of the data actually stored in flash. This innovation makes enterprise flash a cost-effective performance solution that works seamlessly with existing storage infrastructure.

FlashSoft SE is a software solution that automatically identifies and caches the most frequently used data — hot data — on any SSD in the server. This capability, called Active Data Management, enables flash SSD to be applied to the computing operations in which it can provide the greatest benefit, eliminating IO latency that holds back application and virtualization scale and performance.

FlashSoft SE for Windows Server is available for evaluation and purchase now. Pricing is based on the number of servers accelerated and types of SSDs employed.

FlashSoft SE for Linux is currently in Beta testing.

DataCore Teams Up With immixGroup For Targeted Storage Virtualization Programs

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DataCore Software, a provider of storage virtualization software, has announced that it has teamed with immixGroup, the largest provider of government channel programs for technology companies, to structure targeted channel sales programs into the federal government as well as to the Public Sector.

immixGroup will also manage DataCore’s GSA schedule.

Under this new relationship, immixGroup will work in conjunction with reseller partners and solution providers on behalf of DataCore to drive new government sector sales opportunities and help them become familiar with rules of engagement.

From the government’s perspective, the new partnership and its programs will make it easier for federal datacenters to benefit from the cost savings and productivity that comes from virtualizing their existing and new storage infrastructures in support of their virtual servers and virtual desktop initiatives.