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VMware Introduces New Platform for Enterprise Data …

VMware Introduces New Platform for Enterprise Database as a Service

New VMware vFabric Data Director™ Will Help Control Database Sprawl, Accelerate Application Development with Self-Service Database Operations and Improve Datacenter Efficiency

Las Vegas, Aug. 29, 2011 — Today at VMworld® 2011, VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, announced a new database provisioning and operations solution designed to deliver a database as a service model for the enterprise. An extension of VMware's Cloud Application Platform strategy, VMware vFabric Data Director™ will give IT the ability to control and manage a growing set of heterogeneous databases through policy-based automation, while streamlining application development via a self-service provisioning model for developers to rapidly access the database services needed for modern applications. Built on VMware vSphere, vFabric Data Director will also extend the benefits of virtualized infrastructures to the database tier, optimizing resource utilization for increased operational efficiency and cost savings.

"Enterprises are increasingly challenged to manage the significant growth of data needed for modern applications while supporting critical application development initiatives," said Tod Nielsen, Co- President, Application Platform, VMware. "Today, VMware is advancing its ongoing cloud application platform strategy by delivering innovative data access and management services that more efficiently serve today’s applications and establish a foundation for next generation, cloud era applications."

New Era of Applications Demand a Modern Cloud Application Platform

Applications in the cloud era are fundamentally different than those written for previous client-server or internet architectures. Increasingly, modern applications are written in high productivity development frameworks and delivered via dynamic virtual and cloud infrastructures. Today’s applications must also account for a wider variety of web, SaaS, social and mobile platforms and exponentially higher volumes of real-time data.

To address this changing nature of applications, VMware is investing in a complete cloud application platform, including innovative developer frameworks, application and data services and new cloud based Platform as a Service (PaaS) delivery models that promise to significantly increase developer productivity and operational efficiency while enabling access to the broadest range of infrastructure services from VMware, third parties and the open source community. VMware has significantly advanced the modern cloud application platform, extending the Spring community of Java developers with key framework innovations, delivering a core set of cloud application services including messaging and in-memory data services, introducing Cloud Foundry, the industry’s first Open PaaS and leveraging the PaaS environment to embrace multiple modern frameworks and languages including Erlang, JRuby, PHP and Python as well as data services such as Neo4J.

Introducing VMware vFabric Data Director: Self-Service Database Provisioning and Operations

With exponential growth in data to support today's applications, enterprises increasingly suffer from "database sprawl", the proliferation of under-managed, under-secured and even unknown databases across the IT organization. Manual operations for this growing set of databases restrict the ability of developers to rapidly access and provision data services for their applications. vFabric Data Director will establish a policy driven model for driving consistent security, data protection and resource consumption across an enterprise’s database portfolio. Automating routine database operations via standardized policies and best practices will enable database administrators to focus on higher value initiatives while laying the foundation for a self-service database model for developers. Through a powerful web-based portal, developers will be able to leverage vFabric Data Director for self-service access to a broad range of database services to serve their specific needs.

"Enterprises must support hundreds or even thousands of applications to meet growing business demands, but this growth is dramatically driving up the cost of running and managing the databases under those applications. The stress this puts on the IT budget makes it harder to provide databases to support new requirements such as Web 2.0 applications or other emerging collaboration solutions or even to support more mundane uses such as increased application testing. A new emerging option called database as a service (DaaS) hosts databases in the cloud and is a good fit for some new apps." Database As A Service Explodes on the Scene, Noel Yuhanna, Forrester Research Inc., July 31, 2008

vFabric Data Director also extends the benefits of virtual infrastructure to the database tier, reducing operating costs through automation of database provisioning, backup, restore, cloning and monitoring. Built on VMware vSphere, the industry’s most widely deployed virtualization platform, vFabric Data Director integrates with unique resource management capabilities in vSphere, optimizing resource utilization and reducing overall operating costs.

"Making it easier for Tier 3’s Enterprise Cloud customers to manage the complexities of their data is core to our Database as a Service strategy," said Jared Wray, Founder and CTO, Tier 3. "VMware vFabric Data Director™ overcomes many of the challenges our customers face in moving to self-service databases in the cloud and represents a real step forward in technology that empowers Database as a Service."

Introducing VMware vFabric Postgres Relational Database, Optimized for VMware vSphere

The first database supported on Data Director is VMware vFabric Postgres, a new offering from VMware based on and fully compatible with PostgreSQL.  Fully ACID and ANSI-SQL compliant, PostgreSQL is an enterprise class database, with a long history of mission-critical customer adoption and support from a vibrant open source community. 

VMware has also completed specific optimizations of vFabric Postgres for the vSphere environment.  vFabric Postgres' elastic database memory dynamically adapts to changing workloads to achieve greater memory efficiency and higher consolidation ratios. Dynamic checkpoint tuning and the ability to automatically match VM parameters for optimal performance and resource usage further establish vFabric Postgres as an optimal database choice for vSphere environments. 

Database Industry Support for Data Director

VMware plans to expand vFabric Data Director support beyond PostgreSQL, extending the common provisioning and operations model to the broadest range of commercial and open source databases.

Database industry leaders today announced their support for vFabric Data Director:

Sybase, an SAP Company

"Sybase, an SAP Company, and VMware have a common vision that customers' new application demands and cloud deployment pursuits are changing the database market from both an architectural and delivery perspective. VMware vFabric Data Director™ will help deliver both traditional as well as new database technologies as a service for enterprises. We look forward to working closely with VMware as a preferred partner to deliver Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise a leading database solution through VMware vFabric Data Director."
- Dr. Raj Nathan, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

EMC/Greenplum

"The introduction of VMware's vFabric Data Director represents a powerful innovation at the intersection of cloud, virtualization, and data. We are thrilled to have collaborated with VMware, and excited about the role that the vFabric Data Director technology plays in our enterprise data cloud product offering: Greenplum Chorus."
- Bill Cook, President, Greenplum - a division of EMC

Pricing and Availability
vFabric Data Director will be available for download in Q3 2011 at a list price of $600 per virtual machine for databases managed by vFabric Data Director. vFabric Postgres is available in conjunction with vFabric Data Director free of charge for non-production use and $1700 per virtual machine for production use.

vFabric Postgres is also now available on CloudFoundry.com.

Additional Resources

About VMware

VMware (NYSE: VMW) delivers virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable IT organizations to energize businesses of all sizes. With the industry leading virtualization platform – VMware vSphere® – customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2010 revenues of $2.9 billion, more than 250,000 customers and 25,000 partners, VMware is the leader in virtualization which consistently ranks as a top priority among CIOs. VMware is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.


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VMware, VMworld, vFabric Data Director and VMware vSphere are registered trademarks and/or trademarks 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. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the expected features and availability of vFabric Data Director and the benefits of VMware Fabric Data Director and vFabric Postgres for users, and expectations for the evolution of IT in the cloud era, including the development and adoption of database as a service offerings,  These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in consumer or information technology spending; (iii) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization market, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (iv) our customers’ ability to develop, and to transition to, new products and computing strategies such as cloud computing; (v) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vi) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software and platforms for cloud and desktop computing; (vii) changes to product development timelines; (viii) VMware’s ability to protect its proprietary technology; and (ix) VMware’s ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees.. These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.