Emerging Vendors 2012: Virtualization Vendors

The Time Is Now For These Virtualization Vendors

Each year in 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.

Actifio

Waltham, Mass.

CEO: Ash Ashutosh

Actifio's in-line appliances automate data protection and disaster recovery in physical and virtualized environments by creating three virtual copies for instant recovery, backup and disaster recovery while writing to primary storage.

Akiban Technologies

Boston

CEO: David McFarlane

Akiban is developing database virtualization technology that will make it possible to scale up maxed-out relational database systems in virtualized or cloud computing environments by "breaking through the SQL scalability barrier," according to its website.

Delphix

Menlo Park, Calif.

CEO: Jedidiah Yueh

Delphix, a startup that is developing database virtualization software, revealed in June that it had received $25 million in venture funding, led by Jafco Ventures with Summit Partners and Battery Ventures joining as new investors. Already investing in the company are Greylock Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Delphix says its software reduces database storage costs and improves application management. The company emerged from stealth mode in 2010 and says it has Fortune 1000 customers in a variety of industries.

Desktone

Lexington, Mass.

CEO: Peter McKay

Desktone provides infrastructure enabling Desktops-as-a-Service, where a full-featured desktop experience is delivered from the cloud to any device, including workstation, tablet or smartphone. The DaaS platform offers multitenancy while ensuring security.

Embotics

Ottawa, Ontario

CEO: Jay Litkey

Embotics' V-Commander handles automated management of virtual and private cloud infrastructures. The company partners with Microsoft, VMware and Citrix.

HotLink

Santa Clara, Calif.

CEO: Lynn LeBlanc

Virtualization management startup HotLink is a VMware partner that launched its first product at VMworld last year, but its goal is to help customers use non-VMware hypervisors. In March, HotLink launched a channel program around its flagship SuperVisor product, which allows VMware vCenter to natively support hypervisors from Microsoft, Citrix and Red Hat. Sales of SuperVisor have been triple what HotLink expected when it launched the product last year, CEO Lynn LeBlanc told CRN.

HyTrust

Mountain View, Calif.

CEO: John De Santis

HyTrust offers policy management and access control solutions for virtual infrastructure. HyTrust Appliance layers controls for access, accountability and visibility on top of virtualization infrastructure. HyTrust enforces policies on the control plane of VMware-based virtual infrastructure to add visibility into security and compliance.

Nutanix

San Jose, Calif.

CEO: Dheeraj Pandey

Nutanix says users can virtualize the data center without requiring a SAN, while still offering performance, scalability and data management capabilities. With its flagship Nutanix Complete Cluster's converged compute and storage architecture, Nutanix offers the building blocks for virtualization. The hardware and software play offers the complete server and storage capabilities needed to run virtual machines and store data, which lets users start with what's needed now and grow from there. Since launching the product in 2011, Nutanix has already hit several key milestones, scoring $25 million in Series B funding and receiving a host of industry accolades.

Pano Logic

Redwood City, Calif.

CEO: John Kish

Pano Logic produces zero-client devices for virtual desktop environments. Offerings include the Pano Device, a desktop virtualization device with no CPU, memory, OS, drivers, software or moving parts; Web-based management software; and more.

VCE

Richardson, Texas

CEO: Michael Capellas

VCE creates an integrated, virtualized infrastructure using technologies from Cisco, EMC and VMware. VCE with its Vblock Infrastructure Platform accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models.

VDIworks

Austin, Texas

CEO: Amir Husain

VDIworks is a provider of management and enablement software for virtualization, Destops-as-a-Service and cloud computing. Its solution is built on 10 years of pioneering work in centralized computing and virtualization, resource optimization, management and reporting.

Veeam Software

Columbus, Ohio

CEO: Ratmir Timashev

Veeam offers software to manage virtualized environments including Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam Reporter, Veeam Monitor and Veeam Business View. Veeam works in VMware environments and will support Hyper-V going forward.

Virtual Bridges

Austin, Texas

CEO: Jim Curtin

Virtual Bridges combines online, offline and remote branch VDI solutions to offer anytime/anywhere access to virtual desktops. VERDE is a single solution that provides a high-quality experience to all users, whether connected, disconnected or at a branch.

Virtual Instruments

San Jose, Calif.

CEO: John W. Thompson

Virtual Instruments develops solutions for Infrastructure Performance Management for customers' physical, virtual, and cloud computing environments.

VKernel

Andover, Mass.

VKernel, a subsidiary of Quest Software, is a provider of virtualization management software. VKernel's solutions provide performance monitoring, capacity planning, resource optimization, chargeback and reporting across server and storage systems.

VMTurbo

Burlington, Mass.

CEO: Lou Shipley

VMTurbo started in 2009 with the goal of making an app for managing virtualized data centers. In these environments, demand for physical resources -- compute, storage and networking -- is constantly in flux, which makes it tough for organizations to wring the ROI out of virtualization technology. With monitoring, analytics and reporting, VMTurbo tackles the challenge of optimizing usage of data center resources, controlling resources and workloads in an automated fashion. VMTurbo's founding team came from SMARTS, a virtualization management vendor acquired by EMC in 2004 for $285 million. The deal attracted attention because 26 of SMARTS' 300 employees were Ph.D.s. VMTurbo is funded by investments from Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, as well as angel investors.

Wanova

San Jose, Calif.

CEO: Sebastiano Tevarotto

The desktop virtualization startup was acquired by VMware in February. Wanova's flagship product, Mirage, uses layering technology in the data center to centralize image management. Mirage uses both client and server virtualization to give IT departments control over endpoints and allow users to customize machines as they see fit. VMware is planning to integrate Mirage with View, its own desktop virtualization product. Mirage's ability to centrally manage both physical and virtual PCs, regardless of whether they're connected to the network, is viewed in the channel as a key addition for VMware.

More 2012 Emerging Vendor Coverage

CRN's 2012 Emerging Vendors:
Emerging Vendors 2012: Storage
The 25 Coolest Emerging Vendors For 2012
2012 Emerging Vendors: The List