A month after unveiling vSphere, VMware has announced its virtual data centre operating system is ready to ship.
VMware's vSphere 4 is essentially an extension of VMware's Infrastructure 3, which the virtualisation firm said can be used to create an internal cloud to connect up with external services.
VMware first started pushing the idea of a virtual data centre at its annual conference in Las Vegas last year, letting details about the system out over the past eight months. The full details of the vSphere system were revealed last month, but it wasn't expected to ship until the end of this quarter.
With its eye firmly on the recession - as well as claims from rivals Microsoft that its prices are too high - VMware has said vSphere offers "transformative" cost savings. It said using vSphere 4 can boost consolidation by 30 per cent and cut storage by 50 per cent, while using 20 per cent less power.
VMware is offering six versions of vSphere with prices to match. A small business version starts at $166 per processor, while the Enterprise Plus version will cost $3,495 per processor to offer private cloud capabilities.
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