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Technology Stocks : VMware, Inc. (VMW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (177)	8/5/2008 7:41:58 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 358

Start-Ups See Opportunity In Managing Virtual Servers _______________________________________________________________ By Scott Denne / DowJones VentureWire July 7, 2008 - Managing virtual servers that dart around data centers isn't easy, but three new venture-backed companies that have emerged since November are offering products to make things simpler. Server virtualization promises IT administrators lower hardware costs and fluid resources. These advantages, though, can come with significant management headaches. For instance, an appealing quality of virtual servers is their ability to move, but this makes them difficult to track. "Virtualization breaks the fundamental tie between the hardware and software that runs on it and therefore creates new issues, problems and opportunities," said Ashmeet Sidana, a general partner with Foundation Capital and former VMware Inc. executive. Smelling demand, Fortisphere Inc., V-Kernel Corp. and DynamicOps LLC have all come to market amid competition from several directions that will challenge their ability to become large, independent companies. So far about 22% of all installed x86 servers are virtualized, a total that market research firm IDC expects to rise to 45% in the next two or three years. Having the right management tools available will certainly play a role. "I don't think [the difficulty of managing virtual data centers] is holding back adoption, but it is making many IT executives rethink the business case and the expected savings that come with virtualization," said Stephen Elliot, director of enterprise systems for IDC. Most IT departments are too early in the cycle to have "felt the pain of managing the virtual infrastructure," but as they do they'll be looking for tools to bring down the costs and add automation, he said. Traditionally, enterprise systems management has been dominated by BMC Software Inc., CA Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. As data centers virtualize it is unlikely that these companies will voluntarily loosen their grip; all four advertise products aimed at managing and simplifying different aspects of virtual servers. Furthermore, systems management is of increasing importance for the vendors of hypervisors - the software platform that does the actual virtualization - who see it as a way to speed up the adoption of virtualization. VMware has been wading into the management space since its September acquisition of Dunes Technologies SA. Also in May it bought Israel-based B-hive Networks Inc., a company whose software monitors each transaction in a virtual infrastructure and reconfigures the application infrastructure to ensure the service level of each application. A start-up must navigate beyond the product road-maps of both the hypervisor vendors and the traditional enterprise systems management vendors to be successful in this market, said Dave Fachetti, a managing director of Globespan Capital Partners, which co-led a $10 million Series A round for Fortisphere in November. "Fortisphere has created a new offering in centralized policy-based management of virtual machines," Fachetti said. To be successful, the company's products must incorporate knowledge of virtual operating systems, systems management and security, he said. Fortisphere currently has two products in the market. Virtualization Insight provides a discovery and assessment of virtual machines and hosts, giving the administrator information about the operating system that is running and what users are associated with each virtual machine. Its other product, Virtual Foresight, uses the information from Virtualization Insight to employ policies for IT management and regulatory compliance. Prices start at $10,000, with the final cost dependant on how many physical machines are running it. "VMware deeply understands operating systems but not enterprise systems management. They've been buying some capabilities but are probably not going to develop much on their own," Fachetti said. The limitations of hypervisor vendors and traditional enterprise systems management companies can be seen in VMware and Hewlett-Packard's announcement last month that the two companies will collaborate on research and development as well as marketing, Fachetti said. V-Kernel is in a good position to ease virtualization's growing pains by offering a series of software appliances that can be purchased separately to address issues as they arise, said Mitchell Kertzman, a managing director with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, which co-led a $4.6 million Series A for V-Kernel in February. V-Kernel sells virtual appliances, or virtual machines packaged with the company's software, that can be download directly from its Web site. The company's prices start at $199 per virtual appliance for every incoming connection a server has. This model allows IT departments to buy only the features and capacity that they need at a given time, which will give V-Kernel a solid base as it expands its product offerings and customers expand their virtualization projects, Kertzman said. V-Kernel's Capacity Bottleneck Analyzer gives an IT administrator a list of servers where capacity is overloaded and where there is room to deploy more virtual machines. It also predicts where in a corporation's data center future bottlenecks are likely to occur. The company also sells the Chargeback Virtual Appliance, which tracks which corporate groups are consuming which resources in the data center, allowing a corporation to know how much money the compute resources of a given group are costing. V-Kernel is continuing to develop further virtual appliances to tackle different enterprise management systems problems in a virtual environment, said Alex Bakman, the company's founder and chief executive. The newest company to enter the space is DynamicOps, an internal project developed to manage Credit Suisse Group AG's virtual infrastructure. The start-up spun off from the investment bank in January with an undisclosed amount of funding from Next II Venture Group, the investment bank's venture capital arm. Although the company will not make its first product generally available until July, it has been running in production at Credit Suisse for over two years, said Rich Bourdeau, DynamicOps' vice president of marketing. DynamicOps' Virtual Resource Manager provides corporations with an automated process of building virtual machines that is faster than building them manually and ensures compliance with IT policies. It also tracks each virtual machine through its lifecycle by monitoring if it is being used and what groups are using it. The company will be targeting financial services as well as other industries. Getting around the challenges presented by large incumbents does not ensure a company's success. Competition will come from young companies as well as old. In February, InovaWave Inc., with backing from Matrix Partners and Silverton Partner, changed its name to Hyper9 Inc. and went back into stealth mode to develop virtual infrastructure search and analytics tools. The last two years has also seen the emergence of a number of bootstrapped and angel financed virtual systems management vendors such as ManageIQ Inc., whose founder and CEO was the founder of publicly-traded Novadigm Inc., a systems management company that was bought by Hewlett-Packard for $122 million in 2004. fortisphere.com vkernel.com dynamicops.com

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (177)	8/5/2008 7:51:46 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 358

VKernel: Seeking Simplicity in the Wild, Woolly World of Virtualization technewsworld.com

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (177)	9/3/2008 11:30:49 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 358

Old Road Computing Emerges from Stealth to Launch as Virtual Computer, Inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Funding from Highland Capital Partners and Flybridge Capital Drives Innovative Use of Virtualization Technology to Manage and Secure Corporate PCs Westford, Mass. September 2, 2008 — Old Road Computing announced today it has emerged from stealth mode and is doing business as Virtual Computer, Inc. With Highland Capital Partners and Flybridge Capital Partners leading the company’s Series A funding, Virtual Computer will deliver solutions that capitalize on virtualization technology to reduce the cost of managing corporate PCs while improving their reliability, security, and usability. The company is led by a veteran team of Boston-area technology executives including: Dan McCall, president and chief executive officer; Alex Vasilevsky, chief technology officer; and Peter Marconi, vice president of engineering. “Virtualization technology has already yielded clear cost savings and efficiency gains in the data center environment,” said Vasilevsky. “Notebook PCs along with the growth in remote workers represent a huge challenge for IT organizations looking to take advantage of the productivity gains available from virtualization. Virtual Computer will be the first to deliver on the promise of desktop virtualization without compromising on cost, performance, mobility, or end-user experience.” “We have combined a powerhouse engineering team of virtualization, management, and security experts with a customer-driven development methodology,” noted McCall. “With overwhelmingly-positive feedback on our alpha product from both the US and Europe, we are evaluating plans to accelerate product introduction.” Virtual Computer is located in Westford (MA), in the heart of the Rt. 495 technology corridor. Currently, the company is in a rapid growth phase and hiring in all areas of engineering, sales, and marketing. About the Team Dan McCall – President and CEO Dan McCall brings more than 25 years of successful executive and entrepreneurial experience to Virtual Computer. With a passion for building companies in the technology and service markets, McCall has domain expertise in general management and operations, strategic planning, business development, finance, information security, and networking. Prior to Virtual Computer, he was vice president of Corporate Development at VeriSign, a leading provider of Internet infrastructure services. He joined VeriSign through VeriSign’s acquisition of Guardent where McCall was a founding executive and served as general manager and chief marketing officer. McCall has also served as vice president for worldwide marketing at i-Cube/Razorfish and Shiva Corporation. He launched his technology career as a software engineer at Encore Computer and Wang Laboratories. McCall is a magna cum laude graduate from the University Connecticut where he earned a BS in Computer Science. Alex Vasilevsky – Chief Technology Officer Alex Vasilevsky is an industry-recognized expert in virtualization, Open Source, parallel processing, video systems, and advanced optimizing compilers. Prior to Virtual Computer, he was founder and CTO of Virtual Iron Software. Previously, Vasilevsky served as CTO at Ucentric Systems (acquired by Motorola), a leading provider of home media software for media centers. He has held senior engineering and management roles in leading technology companies such as Omtool, Avid Technology, and Thinking Machines. He has authored numerous papers and patents (6 granted and 16 pending) on datacenter and networking topics including security, network and server virtualization, resource optimization, and performance. Listed in The History of the Development of Parallel Computing, Vasilevsky is the winner of three IEEE Gordon Bell Awards for practical applications of parallel processing research. A much sought-after speaker in the field of virtualization, Vasilevsky has a BS in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, and an MS in Computer Science from Boston University. Peter Marconi – Vice President of Engineering Peter Marconi is a technology veteran who has been instrumental in building companies, world-class products, and high-performance teams for 20 years. Experienced in characterizing high-potential products and steering product definition and technology roadmaps, Marconi has a successful record of more than ten breakthrough product introductions and has been granted four patents. Prior to Virtual Computer, he was cofounder and vice president of systems engineering at Axiowave Networks. Additional executive-level experience includes his tenures as cofounder and vice president of hardware at Nexabit Networks and vice president of engineering at CrossComm Corporation. Earlier in his career, he held engineering positions with the Center for High Performance Computing and Encore Computer Corporation. Marconi earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University, and is completing his MBA at Babson College. Doug Lane – Director of Product Management Doug Lane is a seasoned marketing and product management professional with a successful 12-year record of bringing innovative technology products and services to market. His breadth of industry experience spans information security, RFID/supply chain, DNS/critical Internet infrastructure, Web hosting, and telecommunications/IP backbone services. Prior to joining Virtual Computer, Lane held several key marketing and product management positions at VeriSign. He was instrumental in establishing VeriSign as a market leader in managed security services and online brand protection while forging entry into new markets such as RFID/supply chain. Earlier in his career, Lane held product management and professional services positions at Guardent, Vanguard Managed Solutions (Motorola spin-out) and Ennovate Networks. Additionally, he held several operational and product management roles at BBN/GTE Internetworking/Genuity, an early leader in the Internet backbone and enterprise Web hosting services. Lane earned a BS from Emerson College and an MBA from Boston University. About Virtual Computer, Inc. Virtual Computer was founded in 2007 to improve the manageability, reliability, and security of personal computers through advanced virtualization technology. Focused on helping IT teams reduce the cost of managing geographically distributed PCs, Virtual Computer’s unique technology platform also protects against data loss and theft while providing a more reliable computing experience for the end-user. Privately held, Virtual Computer is headquartered in Westford, MA and is accessible at virtualcomputer.com.