Virtual Iron to Expand Data Center Management Capabilities to Support Heterogeneous Virtual Environments

Company Will Support Multiple Server Virtualization Technologies Starting with Xen Open Source Virtual Machine Monitor

Acton , MA , August 8, 2005 – Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of virtual computing and dynamic infrastructure management solutions, today announced new capabilities that make it dramatically easier for enterprises to manage virtual infrastructure within heterogeneous data center environments. As part of this effort, the company will provide users with the ability to manage the Xen open source virtual machine monitor within the Virtual Iron management platform. With this move, Virtual Iron continues to reduce the complexity, and improve the economics of enterprise data center management.

The Xen virtual machine monitor management module will be included as a standard part of the Virtual Iron platform and the company plans to release the module under an open source license. Virtual Iron’s software will also provide users with seamless migration from Xen virtual servers to the Virtual Iron platform for enterprise applications that require scalability, flexibility and agility.  

Virtual Iron is the only solution that enables enterprises to combine the power of data center virtualization, automation and dynamic resource allocation technologies with policy-based system management in an integrated, easy-to-use, and easy-to-deploy system. The solution offers unmatched scalability and availability without the need to alter business applications. With these capabilities, enterprises can centrally aggregate, provision and manage their heterogeneous environments through policies that align IT operations with changing business requirements. This helps companies support business growth while reducing complexity, improving application availability and increasing operational efficiency.

Expanded Features and Benefits
With Virtual Iron’s expanded data center management capabilities, enterprises will be able to apply sophisticated, policy-based management towards provisioning and managing of third-party virtual servers, such as Xen. Virtual Iron will also provide seamless migration from these virtual servers to its dynamic infrastructure for those companies that require data center virtualization. This includes capabilities that pool and share server, network and storage resources to dynamically allocate and deliver capacity to applications as demand and business needs dictate, and make the applications available through both planned and unplanned events.   As a result, companies will now have a single and consistent management view of their diverse data center environments.   

“Virtualization technologies are of increasing interest to organizations seeking both to cut costs and to optimize the use of their IT infrastructure." said Dan Kusnetzky, IDC's VP of system software research. "A dynamic IT infrastructure that is built using these technologies is more complex than a single machine configuration. So, organizations need to include provisioning and management software in their planning. Products, such as Virtual Iron's, offer the policy-based management environment that can support multiple server virtualization technologies. This would allow the organization to see a simple, consistent, coherent view rather than all of the complexities of the physical configuration."

Virtual Iron’s new data center management capabilities extend its ability to:

• reduce operational costs through more efficient resource usage and automated, policy-based management;
• improve application service levels through dynamic, on demand resource allocation; and
• increase agility by rapidly provisioning new applications and resources.

“Virtual Iron is committed to enabling the benefits of dynamic infrastructure and policy-based management for our growing customer base,” said Mike Grandinetti , Chief Marketing Officer at Virtual Iron. “The expansion of our data center management capabilities further demonstrates Virtual Iron’s ability to manage diverse virtual and physical computing resources to support the evolving needs of the enterprise data center.”

About Virtual Iron
Virtual Iron Software, Inc. provides an enterprise-class, data center virtualization and infrastructure management platform that enables organizations to achieve optimal levels of business flexibility, operating efficiency and capital expenditure. The company serves large organizations in the financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, government, retail and hosted services industries. Virtual Iron is privately held and based in Acton , Mass.   For more information, visit www.virtualiron.com   or email info@virtualiron.com .

Contact:
Susan Koutalakis
Racepoint Group, Inc.
781.487.4603
skoutalakis@racepointgroup.com

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