Oracle acquires VDI startup GreenBytes

Oracle users could be treated to a VDI performance boost of up to 50 per cent following the company’s acquisition of storage startup GreenBytes.

Founded in 2007, GreenBytes delivers storage optimisation software designed to maximise the performance of existing virtualisation infrastructure.

The company lists VMWare, Citrix, Microsoft, Dell and Symantec among its partners. The company took around $29-37 million (£17-21 million) in executive contributions and funding following its establishment.

GreenBytes’ technology will be used to enhance the performance of Oracle’s existing ZFS storage appliances. The startup’s highly-rated deduplication software, which limits the amount of unnecessary backups created by a VDI, will be bundled into that enhancement, as well as its patented replication engine.

The startup created its “ZFS+” on top of open source software released by Sun Microsystems (itself acquired by Oracle in 2011). It claims the efficiency of ZFS+ will lead to a reduction in the power requirements of storage arrays by up to 50 per cent.

On top of ZFS+ is GreenBytes’ IO Offload Engine, designed to support VDI deployments. It integrates storage layers with the underlying hypervisor in order to reduce latency and impact on the operating system. Provisioning images and managing swap space is far easier, according to the firm, and this is likely the reason that Oracle has snapped it up.

Oracle has said it will review the existing GreenBytes product portfolio and provide guidance for its customers in line with standard procedure. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, though it is expected to close midway through 2014.