VMware buys IT service branch from EMC

Virtualisation specialist VMware has agreed to purchase products and services from parent company EMC's IT management branch.

EMC said that it would be receiving roughly US$200m ($223m) from VMWare to hand over its Ionix IT management portfolio.

Under the terms of the deal, EMC will maintain control over the Ionix name and will still offer the Ionix products to its customers. Meanwhile, VMware will take over control, development, marketing and support for the FastScale, Application Discovery Manager, Server Configuration Manager and Service Manager products.

In making the deal, VMware said that it hopes to improve its enterprise cloud computing offerings, allowing companies to combine VMware virtualisation platforms with the Ionix management tools and create on-site 'private cloud' systems.

"Customers are increasingly leveraging virtualisation as the foundation for modern IT architectures and their path to cloud computing," said VMware president and chief executive Paul Maritz.

"Essential to this evolution is the ability to provide visibility and compliance from virtualized applications down to the underlying physical infrastructure."