VMware Buy To Boost Storage Virtualization

VMware said it expected to complete the acquisition of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Virsto sometime during the first calendar quarter. VMware did not disclose the terms of the acquisition.

"We believe that the acquisition of Virsto will accelerate our development of storage technologies, allowing our customers to greatly improve the efficiency and performance of storage in virtual infrastructure," said John Gilmartin, VMware vice president of storage and availability, in a statement.

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VMware said businesses are looking for ways to reduce the cost and complexity of data storage within virtual and cloud environments, particularly for virtual desktop infrastructure, business-critical applications and large software development and test centers. VMware said that when implemented within a VDI environment, Virsto could reduce data storage costs per desktop by as much as 70 percent.

"VMware and Virsto share a highly aligned vision to remove complexity and increase efficiencies through virtualization," said Mark Davis, Virsto CEO, in a statement. "We are excited to combine forces with VMware to provide customers a more cost-effective, efficient, and agile storage architecture."

Virsto's software, which is integrated with VMware's vSphere virtualization operating system, provides virtual machine-level storage management capabilities. At VMworld in August, when Virsto unveiled Virsto for vSphere 1.5, the company said the product offered up to 10X performance improvements and a 90 percent reduction in storage capacity consumption.

"We have two plans for the Virsto product," Gilmartin said in a blog posted late Monday. "First, we'll continue to offer Virsto's stand-alone 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 planned acquisition fits with VMware's broad software-defined data center strategy -- extending the benefits of virtualization to all elements of a corporate data center, including compute, network and storage resources, and security and other services. Last year VMware spent $1.2 billion to acquire Nicira, a startup in the competitive software-defined networking arena.

PUBLISHED FEB. 12, 2013