Oracle said Wednesday it will buy Virtual Iron Software of Lowell, Mass., whose virtualization software supports Intel VT and AMD-V hardware virtualization. Virtual Iron is privately held and Oracle did not disclose the financial details.
Virtualization is driving modern data centers as companies consolidate multiple servers onto fewer hardware systems to reduce costs and power requirements.
“Industry trends are driving demand for virtualization as a way to reduce operating expenses and support green IT strategies without sacrificing quality of service,” said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle vice president of Linux and virtualization engineering. “With the addition of Virtual Iron, Oracle expects to enable customers to more dynamically manage their server capacity and optimize their power consumption. The acquisition is consistent with Oracle’s strategy to provide comprehensive enterprise software management and will facilitate more efficient management of application service levels.”
Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle already offers Oracle VM to support virtualization environments. The company said adding Virtual Iron’s technology is expected to provide more comprehensive and dynamic resource management, including better capacity utilization and control.
Oracle will also gain other virtualization products, including xVM Server, from its $7.4 million acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The additions are expected to make it more competitive with market leaders Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and EMC.
Virtual Iron has focused on virtualization software for small and midsize businesses, in contrast to Oracle and Sun’s focus on the larger enterprise market. The company, founded in 2003, has 80 employees and raised about $65 million in venture funding. Intel is an investor.
Technology news reports indicate Virtual Iron’s software provides capabilities comparable to VMware at less cost. Where VMware uses a proprietary hypervisor, Virtual Iron uses the open-source virtualization manager Xen, which Oracle VM also uses. Sun’s virtualization products are also based on Xen.
The Virtual Iron acquisition is expected to close this summer.