Invirtus talks about VM Optimizer By VSM News Staff published: Wednesday, February 01 2006
Invirtus develops software to make virtualization technologies more accessible to more people. VSM spoke to Founder/CEO Tom Edwards about the recently released VM Optimizer.
VSM: What’s the story behind Invirtus?
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TE: Invirtus was founded just over a year ago. Prior to that I was with Microsoft for more than 12 years in positions from field sales to business development. I went to Redmond about four years ago and was in an inside group of the worldwide field organization. About 13,000 people there interacted with customers as consultants, field sales people and technical specialists. They were using virtual machines (VMs) to sell concepts to their customers both in prototyping and in demonstrations.
We harvested all of the virtual machines within the company and provided those in two formats. One was online; at the time they used GSX Server but, they migrated to a Virtual Server after the acquisition of Connectix. We also provided the virtual machines on DVD to people in the field so they could take their laptops and share scenarios with their customers.
That was very popular, and facilitated the need to embrace virtualization even more. I left the company over a year ago and had in the back of my mind that virtual machines are transforming the way business is being conducted. Technical specialists and consultants around the world, whether they’re with Microsoft, Oracle, a small software company or a systems integrator they all have the same problem.
If a person in Georgia wanted to share a virtual machine with a person in California or any other country, state or continent, they have a challenge because virtual machines are extremely large. You can use WinZip and if you’re lucky get a virtual machine down to maybe 2GB. It’s a challenge.
I did a prototype on how to make a virtual machine much more manageable in size without doing anything invasive or destructive to the underlying operating systems and applications. I shared my results with peers and people were very excited about it. I developed a plan for the technology that we developed and released November 15, 2005.
The value proposition is that average virtual machines - whether they are Microsoft Virtual PC or Virtual Server, VMware Workstation, ACE, GSX Server or ESX server - will see about an 80% reduction of size. That means you can take a 5GB VM and end up with a 1GB VM. That doesn’t take into account what you can do with the virtual machine for distribution when you are using a tool like WinZip. You could end up with a 150-200MB virtual machine, which makes distributing it, sharing it and moving it around very simple.
VSM: Is there an in-house development group or do you subcontract it?
TE: We have eight people that are part of our team, whether they’re subcontracting or on staff. We’re ready to support our business plan and our growth. There are a number of things that are happening “under the veil” that we don’t want to share at this point. We’re not a public company. But our technology has been very heavily tested, and we’ve had a number of pre-release users who have put us through our paces.
VSM: Who is your target customer?
TE: It’s anyone having to do with corporate IT, testing, software development, software testing, product and technical support and also learning. That is going to touch very broad customer sets. We believe a corporation that is leveraging virtual infrastructure is going to be very interested in this among their teams of development testing. Companies like Kodak Corporation and HB Fuller are using virtual machines to support their internal systems infrastructure and development. They are good targets.
As well, any software company developing a product with teams of people, whether centralized or decentralized, will be interested in this development.
What is the target market for the VMware Player? Virtual machines are proliferating around the globe and VMware is interested in making sure that whether it’s Microsoft or VMware Virtual Machines that they’re able to be utilized by any number of people, in education, or business, or government. That’s what we’re interested in as well.
VSM: I do have one more question. What’s the footprint of the application itself?
TE: Tiny. We currently take 2.6 MB. It’s a very small application.
VSM: The website says that the Optimizer works with the server product or the workstation product. Does someone create the virtual machines and then run the Optimizer on them?
TE: Exactly. You can run VM Optimizer on any virtual machine. VMware calls it shrinking, and they have a built in shrink tool for reducing the size of a file. Microsoft uses the term compaction. Both of those technologies are used after a VM is created. We’re no different there, we just offer a much more aggressive way to shrink your disks. People who are interested in distributing the smallest possible virtual machine will look at us as a solution where VMware and Microsoft don’t offer anything as compelling.
VSM: So whether it’s VMware or Microsoft, however you create the virtual machine, you can run the Optimizer?
TE: Exactly. It’s platform agnostic.
VSM: But only Microsoft-based virtual machines?
TE: Yes; we do not work in Linux.
VSM: Is that on the roadmap?
TE: We are not targeting Linux at this time. We are focused on developing the technology to apply towards Windows Vista. Linux support would be interesting, and there are enthusiast users who would like to see something like this on Linux. But the numbers do not support us providing for that audience at this point.
VSM: With Xen and XenSource and Novell supporting Linux, that may change.
As you look out into the universe of customers, how would you propose that customers best use your technology?
TE: Essentially, the use scenario for VM Optimizer is identical to the use scenario for VMware shrinking and for Virtual PC and Virtual Server compaction. If there is ever a need for giving a virtual machine from computer A to computer B, or user A to user B, or company A to company B, that will involve some type of media for distribution. It could be a CD, DVD, LAN, WAN or the Internet. Those are complicated scenarios because virtual machines are very large. So the best use scenario is if you’re planning to share or backup or move or archive virtual machines, VM Optimizer is going to make it the least painful.
VSM: This seems like a good fit for disaster recovery and business continuity.
TE: I agree. At VMworld, I was talking to someone in IT with Wrigley Corporation about VM Optimizer and the VMware platform. He pigeonholed disaster recovery as well, and I believe that’s a compelling scenario.
VSM: The product is in general release? How is it being sold?
TE: It is in general release, and it’s being sold direct. We think the pricing is very aggressive.
VSM: The prices that are on the web are per user prices?
TE: They are per user, not per workstation. We find that enthusiasts and power users have multiple workstations. It doesn’t matter where they are or what they’re doing, they’ll have a license to use the product
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For more information, visit www.invirtus.com.
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