With VMware's IPO and Citrix's planned acquisition of XenSource, people are starting to wonder if saying that your product lives in the red hot virtualization camp automatically gets you brownie points... or even better! NetworkWorld recently took on the challenge to scope out the virtualization product sector in hopes of identifying 10 companies that help target virtualization pain points. They searched, identi With VMware’s IPO and Citrix’s planned acquisition of XenSource, people are starting to wonder if saying that your product lives in the red hot virtualization camp automatically gets you brownie points… or even better! NetworkWorld recently took on the challenge to scope out the virtualization product sector in hopes of identifying 10 companies that help target virtualization pain points. They searched, identified and now list for your viewing pleasure the following 10 virtualization companies: 3Leaf Systems – I/O bottlenecks are a key pain point in large, virtualized server environments. “It’s definitely a problem to scale up lots of virtual machines on a cluster and not be able to scale up the I/O at the same time. 3Leaf is addressing this,” says John Abbott, chief analyst at the 451 Group. Attune Systems – “Basically, it virtualizes the file server to the user,” says Zak Khalil, MIS manager at Lessard Group, an architecture firm in Vienna, Va. “It runs with any existing storage … It’s very easy to implement, and it works.” InovaWave – Databases and other applications with heavy I/O requirements are the most difficult to virtualize — and Microsoft, VMware and others haven’t come up yet with a good solution. InovaWave offers one today for companies that need the highest performance in a virtual machine, says Chris Voce, analyst at Forrester Research. Insystek – Few enterprise server environments are virtualized fully, and that means most IT executives are faced with managing virtual and physical servers. Virtual IT lets users manage both from a single console, easing overall administration and cutting costs. Kidaro – “Kidaro pushes the right buttons when it comes to desktop virtualization,” says Andi Mann, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates. Managed Workspace is secure and seamless, and provides centrally managed, policy-based control that provides for employee mobility and keeps corporate data secure at the same time, he adds. Marathon Technologies – “Going forward, we see high availability and disaster recovery for business resiliency as key reasons why organizations will deploy virtualization software,” says John Humphreys, an IDC program director. “There is huge market appeal for technology … that addresses both planned and unplanned downtime in virtual environments.” Provision Networks – VAS improves management and security while keeping costs in check, users say. “We needed the ability to scale our business without increasing desktop-support costs,” says Gary Parkinson, IT director with Isaac Agnew, a U.K. automobile retailer. “With over 600 network PCs across 17 retail locations, we needed to deploy new applications quickly, securely and efficiently to a standard desktop, regain control of those desktops, and turn them into simple, task-based tools. Provision helped make the deployment and control a much easier experience.” Scalent Systems – When servers — even virtual machines — move, their connectivity needs to move with them, and that’s something most virtual-server vendors don’t address. V/OE addresses the physical side, remotely turning on machines and making sure they have the right network address, storage access and operating system or hypervisor booting. ToutVirtual – As virtualized servers proliferate, they become increasingly difficult to manage. “Where the complications happen are with management, the staff impact and the process changes that take place,” says Stephen Elliot, an IDC director. “There’s definitely an addressable need that [ToutVirtual] is trying to fill.” XDS – Once users get past server virtualization, they look to desktop virtualization to reduce support costs for remote users and increase security. XDS focuses on performance and delivers a dial-tone-like service that provides on-demand virtual desktop sessions with an experience similar to a PC or laptop that is reportedly high security and low cost.Read the entire article to find out what these companies offer, how they started, how they got their names, who is on their management team, how much funding have they received and who is using their products. Software Development