EMC spins out Ionix management products

VMware picks up management capability for $200 million cash

Developments of the week in storage

EMC last week spun off several of its Ionix management products to VMware for $200 million, signaling a move on VMware's part to be a more complete management supplier to the virtual data center.

VMware buys management software from parent EMC

The parts of Ionix EMC picked up are Ionix ADM for Application Discovery Manager, the Server Configuration Manager, FastScale and Service Manager. The company acquired ADM fron nLayers – its is in the words of EMC blogger Chuck Hollis "a real-time discovery and correlation engine that dynamically maps entities (applications, clients, middleware, database, servers, storage, etc.) and presents a composite view of the "big picture."

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EMC last week spun off several of its Ionix management products to VMware for $200 million, signaling a move on VMware's part to be a more complete management supplier to the virtual data center.

VMware buys management software from parent EMC

The parts of Ionix EMC picked up are Ionix ADM for Application Discovery Manager, the Server Configuration Manager, FastScale and Service Manager. The company acquired ADM fron nLayers – its is in the words of EMC blogger Chuck Hollis "a real-time discovery and correlation engine that dynamically maps entities (applications, clients, middleware, database, servers, storage, etc.) and presents a composite view of the "big picture."

The Server Configuration Manager was acquired from Configuresoft. It's a template provisioning tool that IT can use to build templates for patch management or licensing purposes. Next is FastScale, which creates 'images' of the OS, middleware and applications running in a virtual machine. And last, there's Service Manager, software with Web-based IT process management capabilities.

The acquisition moves VMware out of the strictly virtual realm into the physical server and application environment. The products VMware bought will complement vCenter and vSphere. EMC will keep several Ionix products, among them its ControlCenter management application.

VMware will get most of the employees and offices occupied by Ionix and EMC will retain rights to the Ionix name. The company also says that it will continue to sell the Ionix products it sold to VMware.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.