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VMware Inc.

VMware's Promontory Campus headquarters,Palo Alto, California

TypePublic

TradedasNYSE:VMW

IndustryComputer software

FateAcquired byEMC

FoundedPalo Alto, California,USA, 1998; 17years ago

FounderDiane GreeneMendel RosenblumScott DevineEdward WangEdouard Bugnion

HeadquartersPalo Alto, California, USA

Key peopleJoseph M. Tucci(Chairman)Carl M. Eschenbach (COO)Pat Gelsinger(CEO)

ProductsvSphere,ESX Server,ESXi Server,Workstation,Fusion,Player,Server, VMware Service Manager,ThinApp,View, ACE, Lab Manager,Infrastructure, Converter, Site Recovery Manager, Stage Manager, vCenter Orchestrator, vCenter Operations Management Suite,VMware NSX

RevenueUS$ 6.035 billion (2014)

Operating incomeUS$ 1.027 billion (2014)

Net incomeUS$ 0.86 billion (2014)

Total assetsUS$ 15.216 billion (2014)

Total equityUS$ 7.586 billion (2014)

Number of employees18,000 (December 31, 2014)[1]

ParentEMC Corporation(since 2004)

WebsiteVMware.com

VMware, Inc.is aU.S.softwarecompany that providescloudandvirtualizationsoftware and services,[2][3][4]and claims to be the first to commercially successfully virtualize thex86 architecture.[5]Founded in 1998, VMware is based inPalo Alto,California. In 2004 it was acquired by and became asubsidiaryofEMC Corporation, then on August 14, 2007, EMC sold 15% of the company in aNew York Stock ExchangeIPO. The company trades under the symbol VMW.[6]VMware's desktop software runs onMicrosoft Windows,Linux, andMac OS X, while itsenterprise softwarehypervisorsfor servers,VMware ESXandVMware ESXi, are bare-metalhypervisorsthat run directly onserverhardware without requiring an additional underlyingoperating system.[7]Contents[hide] 1History 1.1Acquisitions 1.2Litigation 2Core product design 3Products 3.1Desktop software 3.2Server software 3.3Cloud management software 3.4Virtual desktop infrastructure 3.5Application Management 3.6Backup software 3.7Networking and security products 4See also 5References 6External linksHistory[edit]In 1998, VMware was founded byDiane Greene,Mendel Rosenblum, Scott Devine, Edward Wang andEdouard Bugnion. Greene and Rosenblum, who are married, first met while at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.[8]Edouard Bugnion remained the chief architect and CTO of VMware until 2005,[9]and went on to found Nuova Systems (now part ofCisco). For the first year, VMware operated instealth mode, with roughly 20 employees by the end of 1998. The company was launched officially early in the second year, in February 1999, at theDEMO Conferenceorganized byChris Shipley.[10]The first product,VMware Workstation, was delivered in May 1999,[11]and the company entered the server market in 2001 with VMware GSX Server (hosted) and VMware ESX Server (hostless).[12]In 2003, VMware launched VMware Virtual Center, the VMotion, and Virtual SMP technology. 64-bit support appeared in 2004. The same year, the company was acquired by EMC Corporation for US$625 million.[13]In August 2007, EMC released 15% of the company's shares in VMware in aninitial public offeringon theNew York Stock Exchange. The stock debuted atUS$29 per share and closed the day at $51.[14]On July 8, 2008, VMware co-founder, president and CEODiane Greene, was unexpectedly fired by the VMware Board of Directors and replaced byPaul Maritz, a retired 14-year Microsoft veteran who was heading EMC'scloud computingbusiness unit.[15]In the same news release VMware stated that 2008 revenue growth will be "modestly below the previous guidance of 50% growth over 2007". As a result, market price of VMware dropped nearly 25%. Then, on September 10, 2008, Rosenblum, the company's chief scientist, resigned.On September 16, 2008, VMware announced its collaboration withCiscoto provide joint data center solutions. One of the first results of this is the CiscoNexus 1000V, a distributed virtual software switch that will be an integrated option in the VMware infrastructure.[16]On April 12, 2011, VMware released anopen sourceplatform-as-a-service system calledCloud Foundry, as well as a hosted version of the service. This supported application deployment forJava,Ruby on Rails,Sinatra,Node.js, andScala, as well as database support forMySQL,MongoDB,Redis,Postgres,RabbitMQ.[17]In March 2013, VMware gave details of a spin-off ofPivotal. All of VMware's application- and developer-oriented products, including Spring, tc Server,Cloud Foundry,RabbitMQ, GemFire, and SQLFire were transferred to this organization.[18]It also announced that it was introducing its ownIaaSservice,vCloudHybrid Service, in a shift of its strategy of selling software to cloud service providers.[citation needed]In April 2013,Pivotalwas formally created withGEas a minority shareholder.[citation needed]In May 2013, VMware launched vCloud Hybrid Service at its new Palo Alto headquarters (vCloud Hybrid Service now known as vCloud Air),[19]announcing an early access program in a Las Vegas data center. The service is designed to function as an extension of its customer's existing vSphere installations, with full compatibility with existing virtual machines virtualized with VMware software and tightly integrated networking. The service is based on vCloud Director 5.1/vSphere 5.1.[citation needed]In September 2013 atVMworldSan Francisco, VMware announced general availability of vCloud Hybrid Service and expansion toSterling, Virginia,Santa Clara, California,Dallas, Texas, and a service beta in the UK. It also pre-announced a disaster recovery and desktop-as-a-service offering based on Desktone, which it went on to acquire in October 2013.[citation needed]Acquisitions[edit]DateCompanyNotes

October 2005Asset Optimization GroupSpecialized in capacity planning.[20]

June 2006Akimbi SystemsSpecialized in lab management.[21]

May 2008B-hive NetworksVMware acquired theIsraelistart-up for an undisclosed sum. Following the acquisition VMware opened an R&D center in Israel, based initially on B-Hives facilities and team in Israel.[22]

October 2008Trango Virtual ProcessorsWas a Grenoble-based mobile hypervisor developer.[23]

November 26, 2008Tungsten GraphicCore expertise in 3D graphics driver development.[24]

August 10, 2009SpringSourcePerformed enterprise and web application development and management.[25]The acquisition allowed use of the termplatform as a service(PaaS). The acquisition expanded VMware's education services to include SpringSource University and its authorized training partners such as Spring People in India.[26]The SpringSource assets became part of thePivotaljoint venture in April 2013.

January 12, 2010Zimbra(software)Designed for open-source collaboration, it was bought fromYahooand (later sold in July 2013 toTelligent Systems).[citation needed]

May 6, 2010GemStoneIncorporated into VMware's SpringSource division.[citation needed]

April 26, 2011SlideRocketA startup which developed a SaaS application for building business presentations that are stored online. Through a Web-based interface, users can handle all parts of the process, from designing slides and compiling content, to reviewing documents and publishing and delivering them. VMware subsequently sold SlideRocket toClearSlideon March 5, 2013.[citation needed]

May 22, 2012Wanova[27]

July 2, 2012DynamicOps[28]

July 23, 2012Nicira Inc[29][30]

February 11, 2013Virsto[31]

October 15, 2013Desktone[32]

January 22, 2014AirWatchandWandering WiFiAcquired for $1.54 billion.[33][34][35]

August 20, 2014CloudVolumes (formerly SnapVolumes)[36]

October 29, 2014Continuent[37]

Litigation[edit]In March 2015, theSoftware Freedom Conservancyannounced it was funding litigation by Christoph Hellwig against VMware for violation of his copyrights in its ESXi product. The case will be heard in Hamburg, Germany.[38]The SFC claims VMware is using both theLinux kernelandBusyboxwithout respecting the terms of theGPLcopyright license, while VMware told journalists that it believed the case was without merit[39]and expressed disappointment that Conservancy had resorted to litigation.[40]Core product design[edit]VMware developed a range of products, most notable of which are theirhypervisors. VMware became well known for their first type 2 hypervisor known as GSX. This product has since evolved into two hypervisor products lines, VMware's type 1 hypervisors running directly on hardware, along with their hosted type 2 hypervisors.VMware software provides a completelyvirtualizedset of hardware to the guest operating system.[41]VMware software virtualizes the hardware for a video adapter, a network adapter, and hard disk adapters. The host provides pass-through drivers for guest USB, serial, and parallel devices. In this way, VMware virtual machines become highly portable between computers, because every host looks nearly identical to the guest. In practice, a system administrator can pause operations on a virtual machine guest, move or copy that guest to another physical computer, and there resume execution exactly at the point of suspension. Alternatively, for enterprise servers, a feature called vMotion allows the migration of operational guest virtual machines between similar but separate hardware hosts sharing the same storage (or, withvMotion Storage, separate storage can be used, too). Each of these transitions is completely transparent to any users on the virtual machine at the time it is being migrated.VMware Workstation, Server, and ESX take a more optimized path to running target operating systems on the host than that ofemulators(such asBochs) which simulate the function of each CPU instruction on the target machine one-by-one, or that ofdynamic recompilationwhich compiles blocks of machine-instructions the first time they execute, and then uses the translated code directly when the code runs subsequently (Microsoft Virtual PCforMac OS Xtakes this approach.) VMware software does not emulate aninstruction setfor different hardware not physically present. This significantly boosts performance, but can cause problems when moving virtual machine guests between hardware hosts using different instruction-sets (such as found in 64-bitIntelandAMDCPUs), or between hardware hosts with a differing number of CPUs. Software that is CPU agnostic can usually survive such a transition, unless it is agnostic by forking at startup, in which case, the software or the guest OS must be stopped before moving it, then restarted after the move.VMware's products predate thevirtualization extensionsto the x86 instruction set, and do not require virtualization-enabled processors. On newer processors, the hypervisor is now designed to take advantage of the extensions. However, unlike many other hypervisors, VMware still supports older processors. In such cases, it uses the CPU to run code directly whenever possible (as, for example, when runninguser-modeandvirtual 8086 modecode on x86). When direct execution cannot operate, such as with kernel-level andreal-modecode, VMware products useBinary translation(BT) to re-write the code dynamically. The translated code gets stored in spare memory, typically at the end of theaddress space, whichsegmentationmechanisms can protect and make invisible. For these reasons, VMware operates dramatically faster than emulators, running at more than 80% of the speed that the virtual guest operating-system would run directly on the same hardware. In one study VMware claims a slowdown over native ranging from 06 percent for the VMware ESX Server.[42]VMware's approach avoids some of the difficulties of virtualization on x86-based platforms. Virtual machines may deal with offending instructions by replacing them, or by simply running kernel-code in user-mode. Replacing instructions runs the risk that the code may fail to find the expected content if it reads itself; one cannot protect code against reading while allowing normal execution, and replacing in-place becomes complicated. Running the code unmodified in user-mode will also fail, as most instructions which just read the machine-state do not cause an exception and will betray the real state of the program, and certain instructions silently change behavior in user-mode. One must always rewrite; performing a simulation of the currentprogram counterin the original location when necessary and (notably) remapping hardware codebreakpoints.Although VMware virtual machines run in user-mode, VMware Workstation itself requires the installation of variousdriversin the host operating-system, notably to dynamically switch theGlobal Descriptor Table (GDT)and theInterrupt Descriptor Table (IDT).The VMware product line can also run different operating systems on a dual-boot system simultaneously by booting one partition natively while using the other as a guest within VMware Workstation.Products[edit]Desktop software[edit] VMware Workstation(first product launched by VMware in 1999). This software suite allows users to run multiple instances ofx86orx86-64-compatible operating systems on a single physicalPC. VMware Fusionprovides similar functionality for users of theIntel Macplatform, along with full compatibility with virtual machines created by other VMware products. VMware Playerisfreewarefor non-commercial use, without requiring a licence for VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion; or for commercial use with permission. Player versions before 3.0.1 could not create virtual machines.Server software[edit]VMware has produced two virtualization products forservers:1. VMware vSphere[43](also called "ESXi"), anenterprise-levelproduct, can deliver greater performance than thefreewareVMware Server, due to lower systemoverhead. VMware ESXi, as a "bare-metal" product, runs directly on the server hardware, allowing virtual servers to also use hardware more or less directly. In addition, VMware ESXi integrates intoVMware vCenter, which offers extra services2. VMware Server(formerly called "GSX Server"; obsolete as of 2011)[44]was[45]also provided free of charge for non-commercial use, likeVMware Player, and can also set up virtual machines. As a "hosted" application, VMware Server runs within an existingLinuxorWindowsoperating system.Cloud management software[edit] VMware vRealize Suite- a cloud management platform purpose-built for the hybrid cloud. VMwarevCloud VMware Go was a web-based service to guide users of any expertise level through the installation and configuration of VMware vSphere Hypervisor. It was end-of-lifed in early 2014.Virtual desktop infrastructure[edit] VMware Horizon View, avirtual desktop infrastructure(VDI) solution.Application Management[edit] VMware Workspace Portal - a self-service app store for workspace management[46]Backup software[edit]In April 2011,EMCtransferred control ofMozyto VMware.[47]Mozy produced MozyHome and MozyPro.[48]MozyHome is the consumer version of the Mozy backup service. It is available to buy on a monthly subscription.[49]MozyPro is the business version of the Mozy backup service. MozyPro requires a separate license for each computer that is being backed up, as well as a server license for any server that is being backed up. Customers then pay per gigabyte of data they have in the data center.[50]Networking and security products[edit]vCloud Networking and Security was a software-defined networking and security solution, but as of 18 April 2014 has been superseded byvSphere NSX, VMware's newsoftware-defined data center(SDDC). CompareVMware NSX.[51]See also[edit] Comparison of platform virtual machines Hardware virtualization Hypervisor VMware VMFSReferences[edit]1. Jump up^"Form 10-K, Annual Report for Fiscal Year ended December 31, 2014". VMware.com.2. Jump up^"VMware leader in virtualization market".3. Jump up^Lohr, Steve (2009-08-31)."VMware market share more than 80%".The New York Times. Retrieved2010-05-27.4. Jump up^"VMware, Hyper-V virtualization leave others in the dust".5. Jump up^"Understanding full virtualization, paravirtualization, and hardware assist". 2007-10-15. Retrieved2014-12-11.