New Virtualisation Bundle From VMware

February 7th, 2007: EMC’s VMware has released a new virtualisation bundle for SMBs, saying it can help them lower the cost and complexity via centralised management, rapid provisioning and lower hardware costs.

The company says that small to medium sized business using the free VMware Server can benefit greatly from its new bundle, even if only a handful of servers are being run. With hardware power rapidly outstipping real-world usage, a single server can now be used for multiple tasks without compromising performance. For SMBs, this can lead to significant savings.

The bundle includes VirtualCenter for VMware Server and enterprise-class support from VMware. It supports both Linux and Windows servers and enables users to partition a physical server into multiple virtual machines.

“VMware has always believed that virtualisation is useful for companies of all sizes from the largest enterprise down to SMBs,” says Ben Matheson, director of product management for SMBs at VMware. “We believe this new bundle will create an onramp for SMBs to virtualise their environments with a cost-effective, feature-rich management suite.”

VMware says that VMware Server has been downloaded 1.2 million times since it became available in July 2006, with 70 percent of the downloads by SMBs.

While VMware Server is free to download, the new virtualisation management bundle including one VirtualCenter management server for VMware Server with three agents and enterprise-class support including unlimited 30-day support from VMware, comes in at US$1,500.

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