VMware has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire California-based B-hive Networks for an undisclosed amount, although some have reported that the deal was in the tens of millions of dollars. The acquisition is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2008. B-hive is a privately held company, founded in 2005, and has raised about $7.5 million of venture capital investmen VMware has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire California-based B-hive Networks for an undisclosed amount, although some have reported that the deal was in the tens of millions of dollars. The acquisition is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2008. B-hive is a privately held company, founded in 2005, and has raised about $7.5 million of venture capital investments led by Venrock Associates and Index Ventures.B-hive’s flagship product is called B-hive Conductor, and it is a virtual appliance delivered solution that addresses the visibility problems commonly found in virtualized environments. To do that, it provides reporting, monitoring, and discovery for both server and desktop environments. According to the company, Conductor sees inside the black box of VI3 and learns which servers and components work together for each specific request. With this visibility and automated problem resolution, Conductor helps companies maximize their return on virtualization technology investments throughout the operations lifecycle. “As customers increasingly standardize on the VMware platform to run their business-critical applications, it is critical for virtual infrastructure administrators to ensure the performance of applications from an end-user’s perspective,” said Stephen Herrod, Ph.D., chief technology officer, VMware. “B-hive’s agentless, virtual appliance-based approach goes beyond traditional monitoring approaches to proactively manage application performance to specified levels. These capabilities, combined with VMware’s proven virtualization platform, can allow our customers to consistently deliver on their application service-level objectives.” B-hive’s technology can be used in either a virtual or physical environment, but it seems clear where VMware intends to take the product, at least for now. The company’s product also currently supports Citrix virtualization, but like many other VMware acquisitions, I wouldn’t expect this one to continue offering that type of support.In addition to gaining the technology, VMware said that B-hive’s R&D facility and team will form the core of VMware’s new development center in Israel. This gives VMware an added toehold in an area that is being watched right now for its engineering talent and innovative ideas. Software Development