Emerging Vendors 2013: Virtualization Vendors

Virtualization Virtuosos

Each year on our Emerging Vendors list, CRN explores hot tech startups that understand the value of channel partnerships. The list spans every discipline and technology facet of the IT industry. Here we look at the emerging vendors in the virtualization space that combine innovative offerings with a strategy to leverage the channel. The vendors on this list do it all in virtualization, from creating entire virtualization infrastructures to providing more niche offerings, such as desktop, data center and storage virtualization solutions and services.

Akiban Technologies

Boston
Top Executive: David McFarlane, Co-Founder & CEO

Akiban develops database virtualization technology the company says makes it possible to scale up maxed-out relational database systems in virtualized or cloud computing environments by breaking through the SQL scalability barrier. Akiban was acquired by FoundationDB in July.

Anuta Networks

Milpitas, Calif.
Top Executive: Chandu Guntakala, Founder, President & CEO

Anuta Networks develops its nCloudX network services virtualization product technology the company said simplifies and automates the complete lifecycle of network services in complex, heterogeneous networks with physical and virtual IT infrastructure in private and public cloud deployments.

Delphix

Menlo Park, Calif.
Top Executive: Jedidiah Yueh, President & CEO

Delphix's technology enables agile data, transforming the economics of database and application management. The software addresses the single largest source of inefficiency and inflexibility in the modern data center -- provisioning, managing and refreshing databases for business-critical applications.

Desktone

Lexington, Mass.
Top Executive: Peter McKay, President & CEO

Desktone offers a multitenant desktop virtualization platform for delivering desktops and applications as a cloud service, enabling the deployment of Windows desktops and applications from a private, public or hybrid cloud to any end user device.

GreenBytes

Ashaway, R.I.
Top Executive: Stephen O'Donnell, CEO

GreenBytes develops virtual desktop optimization technology. The company is now focused on expanding its IO-Offload vIO appliances through technology alliances with other vendors, as well as channel partners.

HotLink

Santa Clara, Calif.
Top Executive: Lynn LeBlanc, Founder & CEO

HotLink builds bridges of management for heterogeneous data center infrastructures, earning itself a reputation as "the Switzerland of data center infrastructure management." Hybrid Express, Hotlink's software for managing private and public cloud resources, connects VMware vCenter and Microsoft System Center with Amazon EC2.

HyTrust

Mountain View, Calif.
Top Executive: John De Santis, CEO

Calling itself "the cloud security automation" company, HyTrust's technology delivers the essential realtime control, security, administrative account monitoring, logging and compliance assurance necessary to enable the benefits of cloud adoption and virtualization of critical workloads.

Liquidware Labs

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

Liquidware Labs offers products aimed at speeding and easing the technical challenges of virtual desktop integration projects, calculating network, storage, CPU, memory and compute requirements for VDI, and allowing user profiles to be moved across PCs and devices.

Midokura

San Francisco
Top Executive: Dan Mihai Dumitriu, Co-Founder & CEO

Software-defined networking technology developer Midokura offers MidoNet, a distributed platform that decouples cloud assets from network infrastructures. This virtualizes the network stack, helping businesses reduce cloud management costs and more easily leverage multivendor, physical network appliances in a software-based domain.

PernixData

San Jose, Calif.
Top Executive: Poojan Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO

Founded by VMware and Oracle veterans, PernixData offers hypervisor technology designed to virtualize server-side flash memory through its software-defined storage system called the Flash Virtualization Platform. Its latest product ties flash storage and solid-state drives in multiple servers into a cluster to create high-performance storage for virtualized environments.

Unidesk

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

Unidesk provides virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) management software the company said helps businesses reduce costs associated with VDI. The software does this by delivering and managing applications and operating systems, sustaining user images and customizations, and optimizing storage, all through a single interface.

VDIworks

Austin, Texas
Top Executive: Saad Hussain, President & CEO

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

VKernal

Andover, Mass.
Top Executive: Alex Bakman, Founder

VKernal provides performance and capacity management software for VMware- and Microsoft-virtualized infrastructures. VKernal was acquired by Quest, which in turn was acquired by Dell in September 2012.

VMTurbo

Burlington, Mass.
Top Executive: Shmuel Kliger, Founder

VMTurbo delivers a software-defined control platform for cloud and virtualized environments. The company’s products, including VMTurbo Operations Manager, utilize its Economic Scheduling Engine to dynamically adjust system configuration, resource allocation and workload placement to meet service levels and business goals.

Wanova

San Jose, Calif.
Top Executive: Sebastiano Tevarotto, CEO

Wanova develops desktop virtualization technology. Its flagship product, Mirage, uses layering technology in the data center to centralize image management. The company was acquired by VMware in 2012.

Zerto

Boston
Top Executive: Ziv Kedem, Co-Founder & CEO

Formed in 2010 by a group of storage technologists from EMC and Kashya, Zerto specializes in disaster recovery for virtualized data centers with its Zerto Virtual Replication (ZVR) software, a hypervisor-based replication and backup solution; ZVR 3.0 was launched earlier this year.