Virtualization used to be about servers and desktops, but the technology is working its way into other parts of IT infrastructure. As virtualization adoption has flourished, so too has the services business of IT solution providers.

All of the hype about virtualization beyond the server is starting to come to fruition. Virtual desktop infrastructure, which has always looked great on paper, is a prime example. VDI has stumbled in the marketplace due to the storage costs and bandwidth demands, but as IT budgets loosen up as part of the broader economic upturn, more organizations are looking at deploying VDI.

Meanwhile, network virtualization is also looming on the horizon. According to solution providers, customers are interested in the technology but still have to get more out of their current infrastructure before they can seriously consider deploying it.

Here, CRN presents its annual list of the virtualization vendors tackling these different facets of the technology.

Top Executive: Nikolaos Makris, CEO
Location: Addison, Texas

This BYOD-focused vendor offers desktop virtualization, application delivery and thin clients in an integrated product. It also offers a Facebook Client App for secure access to Windows apps and desktops. 2X Software is privately held.

Top Executive: Darron Antill, CEO
Location: New York

AppSense is the largest player in the user/workspace virtualization space and is the most vocal in terms of conference appearances and marketing. It has expanded its scope to include BYOD and enterprise data security. It also offers MobileNow, a SaaS-based mobile device management service for enterprises and SMBs.

Top Executive: Bernard Harguindeguy, Chairman, President, CEO
Location: Mountain View, Calif.

The flagship Atlantis ILIO product solves cloud storage challenges with a scale-out approach. The company works with virtualization software from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware to help virtual machines store data more efficiently and in an automated fashion.

Top Executive: Kevin Kennedy, President, CEO
Location: Basking Ridge, N.J.

The Aura Virtualized Environment, a fully virtualized version of Avaya’s flagship Aura unified communications platform, allows for easy deployment of Aura apps in VMware environments. There are no products yet for Microsoft Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer, but it does offer the One-X communicator platform for Citrix VDI environments.

Top Executive: Guido Appenzeller, Co-Founder, CEO
Location: Mountain View, Calif.

Big Switch has become the top dog of SDN startups since VMware bought Nicira. It uses the OpenFlow switching and communications protocol, which handles packet routing on a software layer separate from the network’s physical infrastructure. The company recently launched Switch Light, an open-source thin switching platform.

Top Executive: Michael Gregoire, CEO
Location: Islandia, N.Y.

CA offers wide range of virtualization management and monitoring tools for cloud environments and plays in data protection, identity management and virtualization security. CA says its heterogeneous management and automation technology can help customers with application delivery and enable them to avoid stalled VDI projects.

Top Executive: Edmundo Costa, CEO
Location: Scotts Valley, Calif.

Catbird pitches “software-defined security” as a cheaper alternative to security appliances and says it has made technology easy enough for admins to learn in as little as four hours. Catbird automates asset detection, zone assignments and policy controls, compliance status and quarantine, and handles enforcement of PCI, HIPAA and more.

Top Executive: Dror Wettenstein, Founder, CEO
Location: Rosh Haayin, Israel

The user/workspace virtualization player is increasingly focused on BYOD and positions its proprietary technology as the solution for mobile computing, remote office security, user-installed application and OS layering challenges. Ceedo works with consumer, SMB and enterprise customers and targets OEMs and service providers.

Top Executive: Massood Zarrabian, CEO
Location: Burlington, Mass.

The aCelera suite includes software WAN optimization products, which Certeon says speed app performance and get data centers ready for virtualization. It also sells management and mobile client software that speeds performance on smartphones and tablets. Certeon works with Amazon, Microsoft Azure and VMware vCloud Director.

Top Executive: John Chambers, Chairman, CEO
Location: San Jose, Calif.

Cisco’s Virtualization Experience Infrastructure combines VDI and collaboration and was built in collaboration with VMware, Citrix and other ecosystem partners to meet rapidly changing workspace demands created by mobility and cloud computing. VXI enables projects as basic as virtual desktops to more complex initiatives.

Top Executive: Mark Templeton, President, CEO
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The desktop virtualization leader is aggressively building its cloud business with its NetScaler product. Citrix is also the No. 3 player in server virtualization with XenServer. It is now overhauling its channel program to focus more on higher-value partners and recently combined its WAN optimization and cloud data center connection product lines.

Top Executive: Michael Dell, Chairman, CEO
Location: Round Rock, Texas

Dell offers a wide range of products, including blade servers and iSCSI storage arrays for server virtualization environments. Its Desktop Virtualization Solutions unit includes thin-client software and hardware from the 2012 acquisition of Wyse. Dell DaaS, meanwhile, hosts and manages customers’ virtual desktops from the cloud.

Top Executive: Peter McKay, CEO
Location: Lexington, Mass.

The Desktop-as-a-Service player recently branched out into application delivery to lure service provider customers from rival Citrix and give customers access to Windows enterprise apps on mobile devices. Its service provider platform also includes Windows Server RDS and terminal services.

Top Executive: Dana Kammersgard, President, CEO
Location: Longmont, Colo.

Founded in 1984, Dot Hill is the oldest storage vendor in the industry but only started working with the channel in 2009. Its AssuredSAN storage product line promises maximum data availability in virtual environments, works with VMware and Citrix, and enables live migration of VMs and vdisks. Its patent portfolio is seen as very strong.

Top Executive: Pete Manca, Chairman, President, CEO
Location: Boxborough, Mass.

The developer of management and automation technology for virtual and cloud data centers took high availability and disaster recovery capabilities to the cloud with the June 2012 introduction of PAN Cloud Director, which automates the provisioning, management and protection of heterogeneous IT infrastructures.

Top Executive: Joe Tucci, Chairman, CEO
Location: Hopkinton, Mass.

EMC has a range of products for data protection, backup and recovery, security and scale-out storage. It works with Citrix XenDesktop, VMware View, Microsoft virtual desktop environments, and Oracle and SAP. EMC plays in converged infrastructure through the VCE joint venture with Cisco and owns 80 percent of VMware.

Top Executive: Jay Litkey, CEO
Location: Ottawa, Ontario

The vCommander virtualization and cloud management platform is aimed at midsize businesses and enterprises and works with VMware and Microsoft and multiple cloud management systems. Embotics says its platform is simple to use, does not require formal training, and can be deployed in an hour.

Top Executive: Eran Heyman, Founder, CEO
Location: Closter, N.J.

Ericom positions itself as an alternative to Citrix for VDI and app delivery. The AccessNow for Citrix offering provides browser-based access to hosted Windows desktops and apps from Chromebooks, Windows PCs, Macs, iPad and Android devices using HTML5. It is designed to help organizations seeking to implement BYOD policies.

Top Executive: John McAdam, President, CEO
Location: Seattle

With a portfolio that spans server, desktop and application virtualization, F5’s Application Delivery Networking solutions help organizations implement dynamic, virtualized IT systems. F5's solutions add intelligence and control to application delivery and allow customized application traffic management.

Top Executive: David Bieneman, Co-Founder, CEO
Location: Alpharetta, Ga.

The developer of desktop virtualization solutions for VMware View, Citrix XenDesktop and Microsoft Windows 7 environments boasts a lineup of products including its Stratusphere VDI assessment, management and monitoring solutions, and the ProfileUnity user profile solution for virtual desktops.

Top Executive: Steve Ballmer, CEO
Location: Redmond, Wash.

Microsoft has become the primary server virtualization technology alternative to rival VMware with its Hyper-V technology and includes in its portfolio App-V for application virtualization and MED-V for enterprise desktop virtualization. The company is also a strong virtualization technology partner of Citrix.

Top Executive: Dave Robbins, CEO
Location: Redwood City, Calif.

This desktop virtualization player, founded by Stanford researchers, offers a complete solution that lets users run a secure, managed Windows desktop as an application on a Mac or on any computing devices. Its MokaFive for iOS lets companies secure corporate data on iPhones or iPads.

Top Executive: Andres Rodriguez, Founder, CEO
Location: Natick, Mass.

Nasuni virtualizes storage infrastructure and delivers it as a service by leveraging public clouds. It brings enterprise storage services to global IT firms with multisite access to primary data storage, off-site disaster recovery, data backup and a 100 percent reliability guarantee.

Top Executive: Raj Dhingra, CEO
Location: Santa Clara, Calif.

This desktop virtualization vendor offers all-in-one hardware and software, helping solve cost and complexity issues involved in desktop PCs and clients. Its solutions allow multiple users to work with a single server or share a single PC as a way to reduce IT costs.

Top Executive: Tom Georgens, President, CEO
Location: Sunnyvale, Calif.

NetApp, a major storage vendor, partners with Cisco and VMware to develop FlexPod converged infrastructures, which unite compute, storage and networking resources into a base for virtualized data centers.

Top Executive: Nicola Sanna, President, CEO
Location: Reston, Va.

Netuitive uses predictive analytics to monitor mission-critical apps, and its management software offers a holistic view of virtual and physical environments. The company’s proprietary Behavior Learning Engine technology correlates streaming performance and resource utilization data to optimize performance.

Top Executive: Bob Flynn, President, GM
Location: Provo, Utah

The company has a broad portfolio spanning apps, server and desktops and offers technology to help businesses migrate and consolidate business-critical Windows, Linux and Unix workloads in virtual data center environments. Novell also offers a virtualization based disaster recovery solution.

Top Executive: Larry Ellison, CEO
Location: Redwood Shores, Calif.

Oracle’s extensive lineup of server virtualization products support x86 and SPARC architectures and includes hypervisors and virtualization built into the OS and hardware. Its Oracle VM lets customers boost application deployment and management.

Top Executive: Birger Steen, CEO
Location: Renton, Wash.

The company is a worldwide leader in hosting and cloud services enablement and desktop virtualization software. Parallels started with Mac desktop virtualization and has now moved into server virtualization.

Top Executive: James Legg, President, CEO
Location: Philadelphia

PHD Virtual provides backup and replication for VMware and Citrix. It supports multiple hypervisors, and its software can be deployed in minutes without needing additional hardware or software.

Top Executive: Bill Galloway, Founder, CEO, CTO
Location: Austin, Texas

Pivot3 sells shared storage and virtual server appliances and was founded a decade ago on the notion that today’s stack of virtual servers, shared storage and networks could be simplified. The goal was to reduce complexity and cost while increasing scale-out performance.

Top Executive: Yoram Salinger, President, CEO
Location: Waltham, Mass.

Specializing in mobile virtualization for carriers, Red Bend Software enhances mobile devices and services with standards-based solutions. Its offerings include vLogixMobile for software and device management and mobile virtualization that works on any mobile phone.

Top Executive: Jim Whitehurst, President, CEO
Location: Raleigh, N.C.

Red Hat competes with Citrix for the No. 3 spot in server virtualization and offers a complete virtualization management solution for server and desktop virtualization and the first enterprise-ready, open-source virtualization platform.

Top Executive: Klaus Besier, CEO
Location: Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

With a focus on user/workspace virtualization, RES Software aims to help companies manage increasingly complex and hybridized technology environments with software that makes IT more simple and less expensive to manage. The company is now getting into the security space as well.

Top Executive: Jerry Kennelly, Chairman, CEO
Location: San Francisco

With a wide-ranging virtualization portfolio, Riverbed offers optimization software and appliances that tackle latency, limited bandwidth and an inability to prioritize interactive traffic in all VDI environments.

Top Executive: Kevin Thompson, President, CEO
Location: Austin, Texas

Specializing in virtualization management and IT monitoring, Solarwinds provides powerful and affordable IT management software. Its SolarWinds Virtualization Manager delivers a comprehensive virtualization management solution for VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V capacity planning.

Top Executive: Kenji Obata, Founder, CEO
Location: Seattle

Spoon is riding the BYOD wave with consumer-grade virtual desktops. The company enables enterprises and schools to centrally manage, update and deploy applications for install-free execution.

Top Executive: David Laurello, Chairman, President, CEO
Location: Maynard, Mass.

Stratus offers storage and server virtualization software and hardware and offers uptime assurance that goes beyond virtualization. Its FtServer platforms make server downtime a thing of the past.

Top Executive: Dan Cordingley, President, CEO
Location: Burnaby, British Colombia

Teradici got its start in PC-over-IP (PCoIP) and zero clients and moved into application performance. The company enables a stellar end-user experience for data-center-based computing.

Top Executive: John Byrne, Founder, President, CEO
Location: Columbia, Md.

Taking on desktop, app virtualization management and mobile printing, Tricerat delivers IT system administration, printer driver virtualization and user profile management—creating these tools for platforms including windows, Mac OSX and iOS.

Top Executive: Don Bulens, President, CEO
Location: Marlborough, Mass.

Offering VDI and management for VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop, Unidesk is the alternative to application virtualization, profile management, image management and storage reduction tools in VDI.

Top Executive: Praveen Akkiraju, CEO
Location: Richardson, Texas

VCE recently broadened its vBlock line to include entry-level models as it creates an integrated, virtualized infrastructure using technologies from Cisco, EMC and VMware. Vblock speeds the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models.

Top Executive: Mark Taylor, President, CEO
Location: Austin, Texas

VDIworks manufactures remote desktop apps for iPads and Android devices. It provides management and enablement software for virtualization DaaS and cloud computing, building on a decade of work in centralized computing and virtualization, resource optimization and management.

Top Executive: Ratmir Timashev, President, CEO
Location: Columbus, Ohio

With the tagline "Modern data protection—built for virtualization," Veeam offers backup, replication and virtualization management solutions for VMware Vsphere and Windows Server Hyper-V.

Top Executive: Jim Ricotta, President, CEO
Location: Waltham, Mass.

The security vendor is getting into virtualization and the cloud these days, as its Digital Guardian is a proven information security platform for VDI environments. The product extends the security features of VDI to enforce role-based data access and control policies.

Top Executive: Sam Cece, CEO
Location: Austin, Texas

Positioning itself as a less expensive option to big VDI players, Virtual Bridges combines online, offline and remote branch VDI solutions to provide access to virtual desktops anytime and anywhere.

Top Executive: Rodney Rogers, Chairman, CEO
Location: Bethesda, Md.

This cloud player works with existing hardware and virtualization software and offers a range of services surrounding virtualization and cloud computing, Backup-as-a-Service, data center consolidation, disaster recovery, co-location and Infrastructure-as-a-Service.

Top Executive: Claude Goudreault, Founder, CEO
Location: Montreal

VM6’s Hyper-V-compatible private cloud platform helps MSPs create a distributed on-premise or centralized multitenant cloud. Its VM6mcp combines virtualization with shared storage, clustering and intuitive management and monitoring on Windows.

Top Executive: Pat Gelsinger, CEO
Location: Palo Alto, Calif.

The server stalwart is pushing hard into the cloud with a range of new initiatives and product offerings. The provider of virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions helps companies transform the way they build, deliver and consume IT resources.

Top Executive: Jagan Jagannathan, Co-Founder, CEO, CTO
Location: Cupertino, Calif.

With its eye on virtual infrastructure monitoring and management, Xangati’s suite of infrastructure performance management solutions revs up cloud computing and virtualization inititiatves by offering visibility and realtime insight into the whole infrastructure.