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Citrix To Acquire VMLogix

• By Jeffrey Schwartz
• 09/01/10

In a move aimed at extending its Open Cloud infrastructure, Citrix Systems Inc. has agreed to acquire VMLogix Inc.

Terms of the deal, announced Monday, were not disclosed. But the company said the acquisition of VMLogix will give it virtual lifecycle automation and self-service features across multiple hypervisors. That in turn promises to simplify how IT builds, shares and deploys applications in public and private clouds, according to Citrix.

VMLogix's LabManager suite of tools allows distributed software development teams to manage their software lifecycle and quality assurance processes. Citrix said adding it to its OpenCloud platform will simplify how cloud providers offer infrastructure services. It will also provide a self-service interface to Citrix's XenServer virtualization platform.

That is aimed at providing interoperability with on-premises private cloud solutions similar to that of public cloud services, according to Citrix. "It gives them neutral hypervisor support, which is a big thing," said Theresa Lanowitz, lead analyst at market research firm voke.

"So many people want to be able to embrace virtualization in the application lifecycle but they have to have support for multiple hypervisors, and that's what the VMLogix acquisition really gives them."

Lanowitz pointed out that VMLogic has extended its reach to the cloud by partnering with providers Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. "That will help Citrix with their Open Cloud strategy in that this gives them a scalable environment for cloud applications so you can scale up as well as scale down," she said.

Given the close partnership between Cintrix and Microsoft and the focus of Citrix's Open Cloud initiative, it is reasonable to predict the Windows Azure Platform will be added to the mix of services supported, Lanowitz added.

That will also set the direction for open application lifecycle management across VMs and clouds with the virtual lab component that VMlogix provides, she said, noting Microsoft earlier this month added virtual lab capability inside Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. However, the Visual Studio Lab Management product only supports Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor.

"I look at this as a potential for Microsoft and Citrix to further enhance that partnership," Lanowitz said. "They have and really set the strategic direction of the market for what we can expect to see for virtualization within the application lifecycle."