VKernel Corporation, a provider of easy-to-use and quick-to-deploy virtual server management and optimization solutions, today announced it has closed a $7 million Series B round of funding. The latest round was led by Longworth Venture Partners and joined by prior investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners. The new funding will be used to accelerate sales, marketing, and product development efforts to capitalize on the rapidly growing server virtualization management market.

 

"From the start, VKernel made the decision to take a different approach to this market using a high velocity sales and marketing strategy to offer low-cost, simple-to-use products that deliver instant value," said Alex Bakman, founder and CEO of VKernel. "As a result, we are quickly becoming a 'go-to' company for organizations wanting to optimize their virtual data center investments. This latest round of funding is validation of our strategy and our success to date."

 

The patent-pending VKernel suite of next-generation virtual server management and optimization solutions is designed to quickly solve real world data center challenges that are impacting IT departments. VKernel leverages the virtual appliance format to instantly deploy its products for enhancing performance, lowering operational and capital costs, optimizing virtual environments of all sizes, and delivering instant ROI. Currently, VKernel supports VMware ESX and plans to support Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XEN, and others. The company's current products include:

• Capacity Analyzer -- proactively and predicatively monitor shared capacity resources to prevent current and future problems and optimize the environment
• Chargeback -- provide instant cost visibility and implement a chargeback processes
• Modeler -- quickly test and validate additions and changes to see the performance impact on the environment before going live
• SearchMyVM -- free "Google-like" search utility quickly finds information in virtual environments
• CompareMyVM -- a free community website tool allows visitors to exchange and compare virtual machine (VM) resource allocations with that of the community at large
• SnapshotMyVM -- free tool that completely automates the time-consuming process of documenting the virtual data center

   

 

 

Nilanjana Bhowmik, Partner at Longworth Venture Partners, and Doug McNary, the former CEO of Onaro (acquired by NetApp in 2008) and past executive vice president at Motive and Tivoli, have joined the VKernel Board of Directors.

 

"What attracted us to VKernel was its unique go-to market strategy and innovative technology approach that addresses key needs in the high growth virtualization market," said Bhowmik. "In a short period of time, the company has not only proven that its strategy works, but has begun to differentiate and separate itself from the competition. We look forward to working with the VKernel team and supporting their efforts to make the company a resounding success."

 

"With virtualization becoming a core platform of the data center, the requirements for innovative operational solutions to effectively leverage investments in virtualization technology is absolutely imperative," added McNary. "I look forward to working closely with the management team of VKernel as the company continues to address this significant opportunity and further expands its leadership position in this area."