Implementation of a virtual infrastructure is often seen as the first step towards the utility computing model. Virtual infrastructure provides a layer of abstraction between the computing, storage and networking hardware and the software that runs on it. By implementing a virtual infrastructure, organizations can provision new services and change the amount of resources dedicated to a software service simply by interacting with a management console as opposed to physically reconfiguring or repurposing hardware.

VMware's implementation of virtual infrastructure is based on the company's virtual machine technology. The technology and concepts were originally developed for mainframes that allowed multiple operating systems to share a single piece of hardware. VMware has taken that original mainframe concept and applied it to lower-priced Intel-based systems.

VMware VirtualCenter and the VMotion technology broaden the capabilities of VMware server software to offer the benefits of a virtual infrastructure. VirtualCenter provides a central point of control for a virtual infrastructure while leveraging existing hardware and management frameworks and VMotion allows a virtual machine to move from any physical server to another without interruption. The company also announced the availability of the VMware Software Development Kit (SDK), which provides an open virtual infrastructure platform for VMware's software partners to build their own virtual solutions and integrate their management and utility computing solutions into the VMware virtual infrastructure.

"VMware server products have already been adopted by thousands of IT organizations worldwide and saved hundreds of millions of dollars in hardware and operations costs when used as a server consolidation platform, said Michael Mullany, vice president of marketing at VMware. "The common vision of IT organizations today is to provide their business units with lower cost, higher service level infrastructure that enables them to respond faster to the demands of the individual business units. Now, working with our partners to enable virtual infrastructure, we're allowing customers to manage their IT infrastructure with new levels of cost-efficiency, flexibility and consistency."