Data Center 100: Top 20 Virtualization Vendors

The virtualization of compute, storage, networking and other resources gives data center infrastructures the base on which to provide services to multiple internal or external customers as well as adopt cloud computing, regardless of which hardware platforms are used. While virtualization was once limited to mainframes, it has now spread to nearly every nook and cranny in the modern data center.

Building on virtualization is a new wave of technologies such as software-defined networking and software-defined storage, which are moving data centers farther away from a focus on purchasing the best hardware to focus on running networking and storage services on commodity servers. While this part of the virtualization business is new, it is maturing quickly as yet another route to the cloud.

Here are the data center virtualization technology providers to make this year's Data Center 100 list.