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Virtual Iron Software

Following Move To Acquire Sun, Oracle Buys Virtual Iron

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As had been rumored for quite a while, Oracle has now agreed to acquire Virtual Iron Software, a provider of server virtualization management software that enables dynamic resource and capacity management in virtualized data centers (we’ve covered the company quite a bit in the past).
This comes right off the heels of Oracle’s move to swallow Sun Microsystems.
The combination of Virtual Iron’s technology and Oracle VM’s server virtualization product is expected to provide more comprehensive and dynamic resource management across the full software stack. Customers are expected to benefit from better capacity utilization, streamlined virtual server configuration, and improved visibility and control of their enterprise software.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close this summer. Until the deal closes, each company will continue to operate independently. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
“Industry trends are driving demand for virtualization as a way to reduce operating expenses and support green IT strategies without sacrificing quality of service,” said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle Vice President of Linux and Virtualization Engineering. “With the addition of Virtual Iron, Oracle expects to enable customers to more dynamically manage their server capacity and optimize their power consumption. The acquisition is consistent with Oracle’s strategy to provide comprehensive enterprise software management and will facilitate more efficient management of application service levels.”
(Source: ZDnet)

Lifeboat Distribution Offers Fresh Virtualization Solution Bundle, Courtesy Of DataCore and Virtual Iron

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DataCore and Virtual Iron today announced that distributor Lifeboat Distribution has unveiled a new promotion for their resellers when they purchase DataCore and Virtual Iron licenses together. Lifeboat will provide their resellers with additional margin and marketing support for selling the new bundle. Lifeboat Distribution is an international specialty software distributor for virtualization and other technically sophisticated products.

Services and solutions provider TelosIT already delivers solutions that combine DataCore with Virtual Iron. “Lifeboat’s decision to offer additional margin for using DataCore in conjunction with Virtual Iron is something we will leverage,” said Kevin Carlson, CTO, TelosIT. “This represents a very cost-effective option for resellers and the resellers taking advantage of this opportunity will soon see just what high performance solutions are possible when combining these two robust offerings.”

TelosIT has already enabled Matrix Design Group, an interdisciplinary firm providing professional engineering consulting to expand capacity and achieve dual-site data redundancy, while saving tens of thousands on lease renewals on its previous generation SAN with DataCore and Virtual Iron.

“With DataCore and Virtual Iron in place both administration and management were simplified greatly and I was able to further reduce my IT spending,” said Eric W. Smith, vice president, Matrix Design Group.

Release: Virtual Iron Extended Enterprise Edition 4.5

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Virtual Iron recently announced the shipment of their latest product version, Release 4.5.

Virtual Iron Extended Enterprise Edition Release 4.5 includes the following major enhancements:

  • Role based access control
  • Internal network switch, i.e. a virtual switch without any physical adapters
  • Windows 2008-supported management server platform
  • Scaling improvements.

Beta testing of Release 4.5 was extensive with more than 35 volunteers from among the Virtual Iron global customer base and partner community.

Chris Barclay, Director of Product Management at Virtual Iron stated, “Release 4.5 provides many features specifically requested by our customers and further advances our ongoing strategy to provide the best server virtualization solution for cost-conscious, efficient IT professionals.”

Industry Moves: Tony Asaro Out As Chief Strategy Officer For Virtual Iron

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According to Alessandro, Virtual Iron just lost its Chief Strategy Officer Tony Asaro, although it seems he’s remaining a Senior Advisor to the company. We reported on his hiring nearly 8 months ago.

Asaro used to be a senior analyst and consultant for the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), in which role he worked as a trusted advisor to technology start-ups, emerging vendors and multi-billion dollar companies.

Sandeep Bhangi, Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategic Alliances, will be assuming his role from now on.

Virtual Iron Joins LeftHand Networks’ Technology Alliance Program

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Virtual Iron Software today announced it has expanded its business relationship with LeftHand Networks by joining LeftHand’s Technology Alliance Program. Together, the companies offer enterprise-class server and storage virtualization capabilities to the mainstream market and enable more users to take advantage of the significant benefits of virtual infrastructure management.

Virtual Iron provides a comprehensive, enterprise-class server virtualization and management platform without the cost and complexity of comparable alternatives. LeftHand Networks leads the iSCSI SAN market and its SAN solutions built with the SAN/iQ storage software enable an infrastructure that enhances storage utilization, data protection and virtualized server availability. The combined solutions offer customers highly available and completely scalable virtualized server and storage environments that provide immediate improvements in resource utilization, simplified patch management, back up and disaster recovery for more cost-effective capacity management.

Virtual Iron Releases Version 4.4, Introduces LivePower For Power Management

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Virtual Iron Software today announced new power management capabilities in the latest version of its software, Virtual Iron Version 4.4. This release extends Virtual Iron’s virtual infrastructure management capabilities with the addition of LivePower, a new experimental feature that optimizes power usage to deliver significant cost-savings and environmental benefits across the data center.

LivePower, available with Virtual Iron Version 4.4, optimizes data center power consumption by monitoring resource utilization in the virtual data center. When there is excess CPU capacity, LivePower consolidates virtual machines onto fewer physical servers and shuts down the remaining devices based on pre-defined policies. When the virtual machine load increases beyond pre-defined thresholds, LivePower turns physical servers back on and live migrates virtual machines to rebalance the virtual data center and ensure that resource requirements and service levels are met.
Virtual Iron also became the first server virtualization software provider to announce support for Intel Dynamic Power Node Manager, which will be available with Intel Next Generation Platform (Nehalem-EP). Node Manager utilizes processor and platform level instrumentation, controls, and OS features to monitor, report, and control system power. Node Manager, in combination with Virtual Iron’s LivePower, enables users to automatically maintain power budgets, turn servers off and on, and optimize power consumption.

Virtual Iron Version 4.4 will be generally available later this month with LivePower.

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