VMware to Acquire Virsto

VMware, Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Virsto Software Corp., a Sunnyvale, CA-based provider of software that optimizes storage performance and utilization in virtual environments.

"VMware is committed to continuing to deliver software innovations that bring significant efficiencies to our customers while simplifying infrastructure and IT," said John Gilmartin, VP of storage and availability, VMware. "We believe that the acquisition of Virsto will accelerate our development of storage technologies, allowing our customers to greatly improve the efficiency and performance of storage in virtual infrastructure."

Organizations are looking for solutions to address the increasing complexity and cost of storage within virtual and cloud environments, particularly for virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI), large software development and test centers and to support business-critical applications. Virsto provides storage optimization technologies that improve storage performance and utilization in these environments. When implemented within a VDI, Virsto can reduce the cost of storage per desktop by as much as 70%.

As part of its strategy to deliver the software-defined datacenter, VMware continues to invest to extend the benefits of virtualization to every domain in the datacenter – compute, network, storage and the associated security and availability services. It has been at the forefront of innovations to storage in virtual environments, and the acquisition of Virsto will expand VMware’s storage portfolio, which includes the storage virtualization and management capabilities of vSphere and the vSphere Storage Appliance.

In addition, EMC Corporation plans to license the Virsto technology, extending the cooperative efforts between the two companies in storage architectures.

"VMware and Virsto share a highly aligned vision to remove complexity and increase efficiencies through virtualization," said Mark Davis, CEO, Virsto. "We are excited to combine forces with VMware to provide customers a more cost-effective, efficient, and agile storage architecture."

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The acquisition is scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2013 subject to customary closing conditions.