Scalent Systems last November launched its data center virtualization product, dubbed Virtual Operating Environment, or V/OE, with support for Windows and Linux.

With the upcoming next generation of the software, announced Aug. 27, the Palo Alto, Calif., company is offering support for Sun Microsystems' Solaris 10 operating system on both SPARC and x86 hardware, as well as support for enterprise-class bladed Ethernet switches, such as Cisco Systems' 6500 products.

V/OE 2.0 will be available later this year, said Kevin Epstein, vice president of marketing for Scalent.

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Along with the Solaris support, Scalent also is now part of Sun's OEM program, he said. "It gives us access to customers that we didn't have before," Epstein said.

V/OE 2.0 also includes an interface to enable the integration with third-party systems, Epstein said.

In addition, Scalent is opening up a new sales channel, Epstein said. IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., is adding Scalent to its ordering system, enabling its customers to order Scalent's V/OE on systems. "Being in partnership with IBM is never a disadvantage," he said.

The software is designed to meet current needs for greater hardware utilization and flexibility in the data center by decoupling the application from the physical resources. This way, users can view the hardware—servers, networking devices and storage—as a single pool of resources that can rapidly and dynamically be repurposed depending on the business needs and applications.

When servers are repurposed, networking and storage devices automatically are reconfigured to suit the demands.

"You can manipulate your entire system without ever touching anything on the physical side," Epstein said.

Scalent officials estimate that the software can reduce hardware costs by as much as 54 percent, and infrastructure costs by up to 62 percent.

It can cut operation expenses by as much as 41 percent, officials said.

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