VMware Introduces a New Virtualization Management Bundle for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs)
Bundle Enables SMBs to Lower the Cost and Complexity of their IT Infrastructure through Easier Centralized Management, Rapid Server Provisioning and Lower Hardware Costs
PALO ALTO, Calif., February 5, 2007 —VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for industry-standard virtualized desktops and servers, today announced a new bundle designed to provide SMBs using the free VMware Server with an easy and cost-effective way to manage their virtual infrastructure. The bundle includes VirtualCenter for VMware Server with enterprise-class support from VMware for $1,500.
SMBs are rapidly adopting virtualization because of the clear business benefits it provides around lowering the total cost of their IT infrastructure while enabling entirely new levels of business agility. Yankee Group report “SMB Infrastructure Goes Virtual” (1) states, “As hardware becomes more powerful, virtualization will become a necessity—even for businesses running a handful of servers.”
“VMware has always believed that virtualization is useful for companies of all sizes from the largest enterprise down to SMBs,” said Ben Matheson, director of product management at VMware. “We believe this new bundle will create an onramp for SMBs to virtualize their environments with a cost-effective, feature-rich management suite that provides tangible benefits—including lower costs and increased responsiveness to business needs.”
VMware Server, an ideal starting point for SMBs, is a feature-packed hosted virtualization product for Linux and Windows servers that enables users to partition a physical server into multiple virtual machines. VMware Server has been downloaded 1.2 million times since it became generally available in July 2006, with 70 percent of the downloads by SMBs. VMware Server is available at no charge for immediate download at www.vmware.com/download/server. To quickly migrate to the virtual world, SMBs can use the free VMware Converter Starter, a migration tool optimized to easily and quickly migrate physical systems to a virtual infrastructure. VMware Converter Starter is available at no charge for download at www.vmware.com/download/converter.
SMBs using VMware Server can use VMware VirtualCenter for VMware Server to gain centralized management of their virtual infrastructure.
“We looked to virtualization as a server consolidation strategy in 2005, and since then we’ve reduced our physical server environment from 15 to three, with 25 virtual machines running everything from internal billing systems to our customer email and Web-hosting services,” said Jim Jones, network administrator for WTC Communications, a small telecommunications company in Kansas. “VMware VirtualCenter for VMware Server combined with its enterprise-class support will allow us to continue providing the best services to our customers, and as our company grows we can stay within the budget of a company with 25 total employees and only two dedicated IT staff.”
“This new bundle is perfect for SMBs because they can better utilize the rich functionality of VMware Server by affordably adding the robust management features of VMware VirtualCenter. This allows the typically small IT staffs at these companies to focus on strategic projects while optimizing their long-term hardware investments and cutting costs,” said John Dolan, an independent consultant who specializes in SMBs looking to deploy virtualization. “It also provides the opportunity to scale out their infrastructure to keep pace with company growth because they can easily deploy virtual machines without adding physical hardware and can add on infrastructure virtualization capabilities as needed.”
With VMware VirtualCenter for VMware Server, VMware Server users can benefit from:
- Centralized Management - enables monitoring of virtual machines and hosts from a single interface, including the ability to set up alerts via email or pre-define actions based on thresholds such as CPU utilization
- Rapid Server Provisioning - reduces time required to provision a server from hours or days down to minutes and provides pre-configured templates. Assuming a small to medium business may add five to 10 servers a year, the time savings quickly becomes significant
- Reduced Hardware Costs - by deploying virtual machines instead of physical servers, customers do not have to purchase a new physical server every time they need to roll out a new workload or server. This can result in radically reduced total cost of hardware over a year
For more information on the new virtualization management bundle, go to www.vmware.com/smbvirtualization.
Pricing and Availability
VMware VirtualCenter for VMware Server is designed and licensed for use exclusively with VMware Server. The new virtualization management bundle, which includes one VirtualCenter management server for VMware Server with three agents and enterprise-class support including unlimited 30-day support from VMware, has a VMware list price of $1,500 and is expected to be available this week from VMware and VMware resellers. Additional agents can be purchased for a VMware list price of $400 per physical server managed.
About VMware, Inc.
VMware, an EMC company (NYSE: EMC), is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. The world's largest companies use VMware solutions to simplify their IT, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands. VMware is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.vmware.com or call 650-475-5000.
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(1) January 2007 by Gary Chen, Small and Medium Business Analyst, Yankee Group
VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.