Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of enterprise-class server virtualization software solutions, today announced a new worldwide authorized reseller agreement with Dell Corporation. Dell will work through Virtual Iron’s distribution channel and resell the software to end-users as part of an extensive portfolio of server virtualization and storage offerings.

Dell servers provide an ideal platform for Virtual Iron and virtualization is a key component of Dell’s scaleable enterprise strategy that aims to help customers cost-effectively scale, improve utilization and simplify IT operations. Virtual Iron simplifies enterprise server virtualization with a comprehensive solution that is easy to use and easy to afford. Many of Virtual Iron’s existing customers run on the Dell Precision and Dell PowerEdge server platforms.

“We’re running Virtual Iron on Dell PowerEdge servers and getting great performance and huge operational cost savings,” said Paul Joncas, president and co-founder of Meganet Communications, Inc., a regional hosted server provider serving the New England area. “The efficiencies and advantages we gain using Dell and Virtual Iron translate directly into increased service levels and better performance for our hosted customers.”

"End users are asking for a choice in server virtualization solutions as they look to refresh and ‘virtualize’ their data centers at multiple tiers including servers, network, and storage,” said Mark Bowker, Analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. “Virtual Iron's reseller agreement with Dell helps to position these options in front of the customer during the evaluation and purchasing process helping Virtual Iron become increasingly visible in a rapidly growing marketplace."

The server virtualization software market is expected to grow to as much as $7 billion in 2011 from $800 million in 2006. Current penetration of virtualization on installed x86 servers is estimated at just 6% today. Virtual Iron provides easy-to-use, enterprise-class capabilities on a next generation architecture, significantly reducing the obstacles to mainstream market adoption. The platform combines the latest version of the Xen® open source hypervisor with advanced virtualization services and policy-based automation capabilities such as LiveMigrate™, LiveRecovery™ and LiveCapacity™. Virtual Iron also takes full advantage of the latest hardware–assisted virtualization capabilities from AMD and Intel to deliver near native performance. Users leverage Virtual Iron to support a broad range of data center initiatives including server consolidation, development and text optimization, high availability and disaster recovery, capacity management and server hosted virtual desktops (VDI).

“Many Dell customers are leveraging Virtual Iron’s comprehensive virtualization capabilities to improve their operational efficiency and business agility,” said Mike Grandinetti, Chief Marketing Officer at Virtual Iron Software. “These companies are able to take advantage of comprehensive virtualization capabilities in a very easy to use and easy to afford solution. Working with Dell, we are able to further enhance this value proposition and bring enterprise-class capabilities to a much larger segment of the market.”