The Sun-Oracle deal has analysts and value-added resellers (VARs) speculating that the virtualization market is the area to watch since Oracle has made moves indicating its interest in this space, i.e. purchasing virtualization vendor Virtual Iron Software Inc. less than a month after pursuing Sun. Alice LaPlante explores this topic in an article for SearchITChannel.com.

"Of our more than one thousand accounts, there isn't a single one that hasn't asked us for help with virtualization," commented Mike Shook, CEO of a Sun VAR. "The Oracle-Sun deal will only accelerate that trend."

Cliff Ulrich, the practice leader for systems and storage at a Sun partner and solution provider, thinks Oracle's choice to buy Sun is a strategically sound one if virtualization is a top priority.

"Sun has developed a broad portfolio of virtualization solutions -- from server virtualization to desktop virtualization to virtualization management -- that Oracle will now own," Ulrich said. The hardware-based virtualization capabilities built into Sun's SPARC systems allow businesses to take a larger box and break it into multiple machines. Ulrich notes, "These make terrific application servers for Oracle applications."

The virtualization capabilities within Solaris just add to the strength of these types of solutions Sun will be bringing to Oracle. "You have all these containers -- exceedingly lightweight and easy to use -- that allow you to run multiple instances of Solaris very effectively," Ulrich continued. "Taken altogether, it's a rich assortment of virtualization capabilities that Oracle could offer to its installed base as well as to the general market."

Virtualization solutions with the combined technologies of Sun and Oracle will provide a third integrated supplier of virtualization solutions. This will include the hardware, the operating system, the database and all the integration services. Eric Burgener, senior vice president of marketing and product management for a Sun storage software VAR, says, "It's a very attractive combination."

Burgener believes all of this is good news for solution providers. "I think it'll be a good thing because it will give us another major supplier in the same class as IBM and HP [that will have] a very broad portfolio of virtualization products. We'll see more integrated hardware and software solutions and more competitive prices for customers. It's good for the channel and good for end users."

One question is what Oracle will do with three Xen-based hypervisors (OracleVM, Sun's xVM, and Virtual Iron's). Some speculate that the three could be combined. Only time will tell.

In general, the virtualization space seems to be an area that Oracle will be capable of covering effectively with the Sun and Virtual Iron purchases. Shannon Snowden, a consulting partner at New Age Technologies Inc., sums up: "(Sun's virtualization products) will cover the enterprise space. Then you have the Virtual Iron purchase, which gives Oracle coverage on the small and medium-sized business market because of its nice management interface and easy-to-use feature set. Then Oracle covers the full range of virtualization solutions."

Shook agrees and is interested to see if Oracle will completely leverage Sun's virtualization assets along with its own strengths and take this market to the next level. "You have Sun, with its virtualization skill sets around the servers and storage and operating system. Then, you've got Oracle with the application and database layer," he said. "If Oracle wanted, it could put out an integrated and scalable top-to-bottom solution set that would put them at the absolute top of mind of customers."

More Information

Oracle and Sun: A virtual sweetheart deal for VARs

Sun Virtualization Solutions

Oracle VM

Oracle and Virtual Iron

Virtual Iron [...read more...]

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Other articles in the Virtualization section of Volume 136, Issue 3: Webinar on Sun VirtualBox Oracle's Virtualization Gold Mine (this article) See all archived articles in the Virtualization section.

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