• VMware vShield Zones secures applications and data inside a dynamic firewall that maintains complete protection across the physical and virtual environment with point-and-click ease.

VMware will introduce three new VMware vSphere 4 product editions for SMBs that deliver cost-effective server consolidation, high availability and data protection to enable Always On IT. Small businesses can deploy a server consolidation and management solution for only $166 per processor with VMware vSphere 4 Essentials and get higher application uptime with VMware vSphere 4 Essentials Plus (only $499 per processor)--these are features that are otherwise out of reach for most small companies. VMware vSphere 4 Essentials Plus is the only virtualization solution that provides high availability and data protection at this price point.

VMware's virtualization partner ecosystem, with more than 22,000 technology, channel and services partners, expects more than 500 technology partners to support VMware vSphere 4 by the end of 2009. This broad ecosystem provides SMB and ROBO customers with a wide variety of servers, storage devices, networking and applications that interoperate with VMware vSphere 4 and are fully supported by each vendor. In addition, VMware vCloud partners such as BlueLock and SunGard are delivering SMB business continuity and disaster recovery solutions that directly leverage the cloud.

VMware Fault Tolerance, VMware Data Recovery and VMware vShield Zones are expected to be generally available with VMware vSphere 4 Advanced later in the second quarter of 2009, while VMware vSphere 4 Essentials, VMware vSphere 4 Essentials Plus and VMware vSphere 4 Advanced are expected to be generally available from VMware and its network of OEM and channel partners later in the second quarter of 2009.