Egenera, Dell Partner on Data Center Virtualization

Back in October Egenera said it would make its data center virtualization software available on other vendors’ hardware platforms. The company’s PAN Manager software had previously been available only on Egenera’s BladeFrame hardware.

That strategy took a big step forward yesterday, when Egenera and Dell said the two companies intend to combine Dell’s PowerEdge servers and Infrastructure Consulting Services and Egenera’s PAN Manager data center virtualization software. The solution is designed to enable customers to simplify operations by creating and managing a single resource pool for both physical and virtualized servers.

“The Dell-Egenera relationship was driven by customer need for simple, agile and cost-effective solutions that virtualize and unify data center assets beyond a single server,” said Mike Thompson, president and CEO, Egenera. “We’re driving to provide customers with a powerful, integrated way to manage server, network and storage assets, with lower operational costs, increased resource utilization and uptime.”

BMC Buys BladeLogic for $800 Million

Data center automation software provider BladeLogic (BLOG) has agreed to be acquired by BMC Software (BMC) for $28 a share, or approximately $800 million. The deal values BladeLogic above its IPO price of $17 a share when it went public in July and Friday’s closing price of $23.61, but slightly below the stock’s trading high of $31 a share in late December.

BMC’s move is the latest in a series of deals in which large players in the data center sector have acquired smaller firms with expertise in data center automation, most notably HP’s acquisition of Opsware for $1.6 billion.

“Organizations around the world will spend more than $140 billion dollars this year running data centers,” said Bob Beauchamp, BMC’s president and chief executive officer. “Automation is the only way IT can bring this spending under control and still meet the reliability and time-to-market requirements of their businesses. BMC’s acquisition of BladeLogic will create the new IT Service Automation leader, unique in its ability to provide these critical capabilities. It is a natural and very significant next step in our vision of Business Service Management.”

Rackspace and Virtualization

The use of virtualization at Rackspace has been a topic of interest since the company released a customer survey last August which highlighted the challenges of virtualization, including customer resistance to sharing virtualized resources. When Rackspace launched dedicated virtualized servers in January, some media reports said the company had backtracked on its previous stance.

Tarry Singh at Virtualization for Everyone has posted an interview with Rackspace CTO John Engates exploring the companies’ virtualization strategy, as well as its “data centers as a service” and cloud computing.

$12M for Data Center Virtualization Firm CiRBA

Data center virtualization specialist CiRBA Inc., has raised $12 million in its second round of institutional funding, the company said this week. The funding was led by Sigma Partners and also included existing investor Edgestone Capital Partners. The cash will “enable CiRBA to further accelerate growth on a global scale, with investments in sales, marketing and product development.”

CiRBA’s software helps companies analyze their existing data center and devise a strategy for using virtualization in data center consolidation and migration. CiRBA also provides tools for managing virtualized infrastructure. The company was founded in 1999 and is based in Ontario, Canada.

Microsoft Moves on Virtualization

Microsoft (MSFT) has acquired Calista Technologies and expanded its alliance with Citrix Systems (CTXS) as part of a broader virtualization strategy it will outline Tuesday. Calista specializes in virtual desktop software, while Citrix acquired XenSource last year. These moves, along with adjustments to Microsoft’s virtualization licensing for Windows Vista, are designed to position Microsoft to compete more aggressively with VMware in the enterprise virtualization market.

Microsoft will formally unveil its virtualization strategy tomorrow at a Virtualization Deployment Summit in Bellevue, Washington. Dan Farber at ZDNet has a thorough advance of the news, however, including commentary from Microsoft and VMware and the text of a memo to some Microsoft customers outlining the company’s approach to “Dynamic IT” using virtualization.

SWsoft Rebrands as Parallels

Virtualization software specialist SWsoft will change its name to Parallels, seeking to capitalize on the growing popularity of its desktop virtualization products. The company emphasized that it will continue to focus on the server virtualization market, but wanted to establish a unified brand and focus on “optimized computing.”

SWsoft has been a major player in the hosting automation market with its Virtuozzo server virtualization product, which is widely used virtual private server (VPS) hosting accounts. The company also makes the Plesk control panel, which allows hosting customers to manage their sites with minimal tech support. But the renaming reflects the strength of its well-reviewed Parallels desktop products.

Virtualization’s Impact on Software Licensing

Information Week has a comprehensive story that examines the impact of virtualization and multi-core processors on software licensing models, with significant implications for data center consolidation projects that use these technologies. An excerpt:

Multicore processors and virtualization are nails in the coffin for standard software licensing models, but there’s no agreement on a replacement. And the problem isn’t confined to the data center. … Alternative licensing schemes range from the familiar, like open source and SaaS, to untested models like pricing based on memory or virtual cores. At best, they could mean lower costs and more flexibility. But let’s be real - when have software vendors embraced low costs and flexibility? Worst case, the hardware savings from the server consolidation that virtualization enables will be gobbled up by software licensing charges.

The article is quite lengthy but includes at-a-glance chart of different virtualization architectures and leading vendors’ licensing structures for multi-core and virtualized environments.

Egenera Enters Virtualization Software Market

Egenera Inc. has entered the virtualization software market, announcing today that it will make its PAN Manager software available on other vendors’ hardware platforms. Until now the software has only been available on Egenera’s BladeFrame hardware.

The move allows Egenera to jump into the market for virtualization software, which is red-hot in the wake of the successful IPO by market leader VMware (VMW) earlier this year. Other leading players in the virtualization software market include Microsoft (MSFT) and Citrix (CTXS), which in August spent $500 million to acquire XenSource, a key provider of the open-source Xen virtualization software.

Egenera, which is based in Marlboro, Mass., calls itself the “data center virtualization company.” PAN Manager is Egenera’s core software, using a Processing Area Network (PAN) architecture to combine server virtualization with network and storage virtualization. Egenera PAN Manager creates networks of virtual and physical servers, and can move individual servers, groups of servers or entire systems from one place to another seamlessly.

“Bringing PAN Manager software to non-Egenera hardware platforms is one of our most significant and strategic moves since launching the company seven years ago,” said Mike Thompson, Egenera president and CEO. “PAN Manager is truly at the heart of our value proposition in the data center - giving customers the power to move quickly and without restriction as is required in today’s business environment. Making our proven software available beyond our own hardware makes business sense for Egenera and gives our customers choice in how they implement data center virtualization.”