by John Gilmartin
Vice President,
Storage & Availability
Today, VMware announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Virsto Software (read VMware press release, read Virsto blog post), a Sunnyvale, California-based company whose software optimizes storage for virtual environments. I look forward to welcoming the very talented Virsto team to VMware as soon as we close the transaction, which we expect will occur later this quarter.
Our customers have told us that managing performance and data services for virtual machines can be challenging, especially in I/O-intensive environments like virtual desktops. Virsto has developed a VM-centric storage management model that accelerates I/O performance for any block-based storage system while providing efficient data services like VM snapshots and clones. These technologies have helped Virsto customers significantly improve the performance and utilization of their storage systems. For a more eloquent explanation of what the Virsto team has accomplished, please read the blog Cormac Hogan posted back in August: http://cormachogan.com/2012/08/22/virsto-software-for-vsphere-overview/
We have two plans for the Virsto product. First, we’ll continue to offer Virsto’s standalone virtual appliance to help accelerate storage performance and improve efficiency in VMware vSphere environments. This means we’ll continue to support existing Virsto customers while also introducing Virsto’s capabilities to new users. Second, we’re planning to integrate Virsto’s architecture and data management services into future VMware products. Stay tuned for more specifics on this.
The acquisition of Virsto is just the latest example of VMware’s commitment to delivering innovative solutions to some of the toughest problems in IT. We believe that by extending the benefits of virtualization to every domain of the datacenter – compute, network, storage – we can help our customers achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and agility.
As the datacenter undergoes a fundamental transformation, new opportunities and innovation are emerging across every technology category. Defining a new approach to storage will be a foundational element of the software-defined datacenter, and VMware is excited to help drive this transformation in partnership with our storage ecosystem. I look forward to sharing more developments