Oracle's Purchase of Virtual Iron: Oracle VM

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Oracle admitted that its virtualization product lacked key virtualization management and efficiency features but promised that those features will soon be added by using new technology gained through the acquisition of Virtual Iron.

The acquisition of Virtual Iron is expected to close by the summer. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) 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 and that 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 website to news concerning the acquisition.

Article courtesy of InternetNews.com.