VMware Makes It Easy

VMware is looking to solidify its presence in the server virtualization market with a series of moves aimed at fostering new partnerships and making it easier for the rest of the industry to work with the company.

Last week, for example, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based subsidiary of EMC signed up Sun Microsystems to resell its virtualization software. Sun joins rivals such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and NEC to become the latest hardware vendor to resell VMware software.

Sun plans to resell VMware ESX Server, VMware GSX Server and VMware Workstation products to customers and solution providers that purchase Sun Fire x64 servers or Sun workstations. The move fills a big void in Sun's product line, said Tom Kuni, president of SSI hubcity, a Metuchen, N.J.-based Sun solution provider.

"They haven't had a competitive product," said Kuni. "For Sun to sign an EMC-owned company at this time, they must have thought it was important."

Rob Wolfe, president and CEO of AvcomEast, a Silver Spring, Md.-based Sun partner, also noted the virtualization hole in Sun's line that is now plugged with VMware. For the channel, it's important that vendors like Sun bring in VMware in order to keep EMC, which has a reputation of taking deals direct, at arm's length, he said.

"A Sun reseller may want to contact EMC to work with VMware, but it also leads down the slippery slope of working with EMC," said Wolfe. "This new relationship brings VMware under the Sun banner. I feel much more comfortable with it a part of the Sun ecosystem."

VMware now also has plans to support paravirtualized Linux and Solaris x86 operating systems with its VMware ESX Server, VMware GSX Server and VMware Workstation software. Paravirtualized Linux is an operating system that has been modified to run in a virtualized environment. The company already supports unmodified Linux.

VMware also introduced an initiative with several other hardware and software vendors to develop virtualization standards based on its hypervisors, a base component for facilitating virtualization in heterogeneous environments, said Jeffrey Engelmann, executive vice president of marketing.

Joining VMware in the initiative are AMD, BEA Systems, BMC Software, Broadcom, Cisco, Computer Associates International, Dell, Emulex, HP, IBM, Intel, Mellanox, Novell, QLogic, Red Hat and Virtual Iron Software.

Not joining so far are key competitors such as Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., and Herndon, Va.-based SWsoft. "We would like them to be involved," said Karthik Rau, VMware director of product management.

VMware also unveiled its new Community Source program, which provides developers access to the VMware ESX Server source under a royalty-free license, said Engelmann. "We want to make it easier for partners to accelerate virtualization solutions in the market."

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