Oracle Wednesday admitted its virtualization
product lacked key management and efficiency features but promised
those features will soon be added by using new technology gained through the acquisition
of Virtual Iron.
Oracle’s announced acquisition of Virtual Iron is designed to enhance Oracle VM in the long term. For now, though, it showcases the gaps in the current feature set.
The acquisition of Virtual Iron is expected to close by the summer. Oracle said in a
statement that it will retain Virtual Iron’s employees but did not say how the
acquisition would impact Virtual Iron’s product road map.
What is clear is how the acquisition will change Oracle VM, the company’s
virtualization software. Oracle said that the two companies’ products are complementary
because they both use Linux and Xen open source software. It will integrate
important Virtual Iron technology into Oracle VM.
A check box slide in the presentation that accompanied the release highlighted three
Virtual Iron features that Oracle lacks today: capacity management, power management, and “Integration: open, comprehensive and scriptable API.”
Oracle noted that efficient provisioning and energy use are driving the adoption of
virtualization by enterprise customers. “Demand for virtualization is large and growing,
fueled by pressures to reduce IT cost, demands to shorten software deployment times and
the desire of companies to implement ‘green’ strategies,” Oracle said.
The acquisition is about more than improving Oracle VM, however. The goal is to make
virtualization a feature of an Oracle solution that will deliver management tools for the entire network.
“The combination of Virtual Iron technology and Oracle VM’s scalable, high performance and highly available server virtualization product supports Oracle’s strategy to provide complete, full stack management across the virtual and physical enterprise and is expected to provide more comprehensive and dynamic resource management,” Oracle said in a statement.
Oracle VM will work with Oracle Enterprise Manager to provide this complete solution.
“Customers are expected to benefit from the combination with Oracle VM and Oracle
Enterprise Manager through faster application deployment, streamlined virtualization
server configuration and improved visibility and control across Oracle’s enterprise
software stack,” the company added.
Customers want the complete solution because they need to have an infrastructure that
can scale and adapt to new demands. “IT management is … interested in virtualization
as an easy way to provide a highly available platform for their hosted software,” Oracle
said.
Oracle isn’t just buying technology, however. Oracle noted that Virtual Iron’s
products are popular. The company said that Virtual Iron’s products are easy to use and
that Virtual Iron has an impressive list of customers across a variety of industries.
Virtual Iron customers include priceline.com, the U.S. Air Force, Toyota, Hitachi,
NetApp and the NTT Group.
Oracle has devoted a section of its web site to news concerning the acquisition.
Article courtesy of InternetNews.com