Oakwood Expands its Virtualization Offering Through Partnership with VMWare 

 
3/31/2008 
Oakwood Systems Group, Inc. has partnered with VMWare, the market leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the data center, to expand upon its own virtualization offerings.  The partnership gives Oakwood the ability to offer VMWare’s wide range of award-winning server virtualization, desktop virtualization, and management and automation products to organizations wishing to optimize their computing, storage, and network systems.
 
Virtualization makes it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple applications on the same computer or the same server at the same time.  The result is an increase in the utilization and flexibility of hardware.  Through the virtualization of an organization’s IT infrastructure with the use of virtual servers and virtual desktops, organizations can host multiple operating systems and multiple applications locally and in remote locations.  The end result is an IT infrastructure that offers freedom from physical and geographic limitations, energy savings, lower capital expenses through increased hardware efficiency, a higher availability of resources, better desktop management, increased security, and improved disaster recovery services.  According to CIO Magazine’s website (CIO.com), “Virtualization has become the cornerstone of every enterprise's favorite money-saving initiative. Industry analysts report that between 60 percent and 80 percent of IT departments are pursuing server consolidation projects. It's easy to see why: By reducing the numbers and types of servers that support their business applications, companies are looking at significant cost savings.”
 
Oakwood’s new partnership with VMWare, combined with its existing partnership with NetApp, creates a fully complementary virtualization offering.  Oakwood can now offer NetApp’s storage solutions in conjunction with VMWare’s software products.  The end result is a virtualization and storage solution that saves up to 50% on storage power, cooling, and space, lowers data center costs, brings products, services, and projects to market faster, and frequently backs up and stores data.  Virtualizing the data center is also an important piece of the “Go Green” initiatives currently sweeping through business and industry.