Sun Finds New OEMs For Virtual Desktop Tech
The move comes just about a month before Sun is expected to release its xVM server virtualization technology, which is slated to compete with VMware's ESX, Microsoft's Hyper-V and Citrix's XenServer technologies.
VirtualBox is an entry ramp to Sun's xVM server virtualization, said Vijay Sarathy, senior director of marketing for Sun xVM. "Developers can start to provide a seamless path to xVM," Sarathy said.
VirtualBox came to Sun in February with the acquisition of innotek, a Stuttgart, Germany, company that has been developing PC virtualization technology since 2001.
VirtualBox allows users to create virtual desktop PCs into which they can install their choice of operating system and application stack. It is available as a free open-source download of about 20 MBs, making it suitable for OEMs and as an embedded platform, Sarathy said. It has already been downloaded more than 6 million times, with a few hundreds of thousands currently being used in production environments, he said.
The first new OEM, Avanquest Software, a France-based software publisher with U.S. headquarters in Calabasas, Calif. Avanquest plans to bundle VirtualBox with OpenSolaris for sale via retail outlets, especially in Europe.
The second is Q-layer, a Mountain View, Calif.-based provider of technology to turn virtual server technology into a cloud computing offering. Q-layer plans to use VirtualBox as part of its data center virtualization offering.
The third is Bombay, India-based Zenith InfoTech, which develops technology for building disaster-recovery infrastructures. Zenith InfoTech sells an appliance that allows data to be backed remotely while keeping a local copy for fast restores and that can automatically build a virtual server should a physical server crash. That appliance use VirtualBox technology.
Sun has other OEM partners, including one company that builds encrypted disks that have Windows and Linux partitions and require signing onto the Linux partition to boot the Windows partition, Sarathy said. He would not name that vendor.