PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 12 -- VMware Inc., the virtualization software leader, today announced that SAP AG will provide immediate full support to its solutions in 64-bit Windows- and Linux-based production environments running on VMware ESX Server. Servers from Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, IBM and Sun have achieved hardware platform certification for SAP solutions running on Windows and Linux with VMware ESX Server, a component of the VMware Infrastructure software suite. VMware Infrastructure supports SAP solutions with both Windows and Linux on industry-standard hardware. SAP and VMware will assist joint customers in cooperative support services and problem resolution, backed by a global technology partnership agreement and dedicated support staffing.

"There has been overwhelming customer demand for SAP and VMware solutions. Support of SAP solutions on VMware ESX Server means customers can extend the numerous benefits of infrastructure virtualization to the business-critical and functionally rich SAP solutions in their IT environments," said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions at VMware. "This support reflects the increasingly productive relationship between SAP and VMware, and it provides a sought-after solution for customers looking to combine the powerful process management capabilities of SAP solutions with the robust datacenter management and cost-saving features of VMware Infrastructure."

SAP solutions enable organizations of all sizes to manage business- critical processes using an enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) to quickly translate customer signals into operational response, respond faster to business and market changes, and provide built-in application integration. Customers who rely on SAP solutions to keep their businesses moving forward can deploy VMware ESX Server with SAP support for all stages of the software lifecycle from development and test to production.

VMware Infrastructure allows customers to turn industry-standard hardware into OS- and hardware-agnostic enterprise-class virtual infrastructure where entire server, storage and network farms can be managed as a shared utility and dynamically allocated to different business units or projects. This gives IT decision makers the ability to combat the continually escalating datacenter infrastructure and administrative costs incurred from hardware acquisition, management, power and cooling, real estate and disaster recovery; transform IT service levels; and simplify and automate their IT infrastructure.

"VMware Infrastructure has many benefits for hosted environments," said Benno Weidmann, vice president of hosting infrastructure management at SAP Hosting. "We've been able to automate internal business processes and increase service levels to internal customers. In addition, we have reduced costs with consolidation and automation of system deployment, as well as greatly reduced the required hardware for internal training and development systems. Altogether, virtualization helps us to lower costs, develop and automate user services, better manage hardware and software lifecycles, and improve production and capacity planning across a more unified infrastructure."

Customers that have been using VMware ESX Server with SAP solutions are successfully leveraging the benefits of virtualization for mission-critical SAP workloads. Support from SAP will enable customers to further extend the value of running SAP solutions on their virtualized infrastructures.

"Our Dynamic Services offering has been taking advantage of the benefits of VMware Infrastructure for use in SAP solution-based environments for a couple of years now," said Dr. Gregory Smith, director of dynamic services at T-Systems North America. "VMware solutions, combined with our own IP, give us high application availability, high server utilization and agile resource management, making it possible to give our customers using SAP solutions a true utility computing model at a lower cost than our competitors."

"We are very pleased with the results of virtualizing our SAP solutions- based environment," said Dave Swan, senior manager of IS&T server operations for EFI. "With VMware VMotion, we can do both scheduled and on-the-fly maintenance with zero downtime. We get excellent stability, as well; we can allocate resources as necessary to meet changing workloads without interruptions to our users. One unplanned benefit that we've leveraged to great advantage is the ability to spin up temporary test or proof-of-concept environments quickly, whenever we need them, which eliminates unnecessary delays in the software development cycle. VMware software has changed our whole concept of how to support SAP solution-based infrastructure, and we're able to serve the company much better than we could before we virtualized."

By supporting its applications in production environments running on VMware ESX Server, SAP enables its customers to capitalize on the robust benefits of infrastructure virtualization, including:

• Improved datacenter automation and management: Customers can more easily manage IT resources to boost performance of mission-critical SAP solution- based workloads.

• Business continuity and data protection: VMware Infrastructure reduces downtime by automatically restarting virtual machines on different physical servers in the event of hardware failure, and the suite provides cost- effective, hardware-independent disaster recovery.

• Reduced server sprawl: Customers can run SAP application layers in virtual machines that are consolidated onto fewer, highly scalable and reliable enterprise servers, enabling a smaller datacenter footprint and lowering hardware costs.

• Quick and easy server provisioning: New virtualized servers can be provisioned and new SAP solution-based environments can be set up in minutes instead of the hours or days it can take to acquire and set up new hardware.

Customers also will benefit from the opening of the first Virtualization Competency Center (VCC) for SAP solutions in conjunction with AddOn Systemhaus GmbH, a leading consulting company. Situated in Walldorf, Germany, the center will be managed and run by AddOn and will provide customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) with a facility where knowledgeable consultants help design, migrate and then optimize simulated deployments of SAP solutions on VMware Infrastructure.

More information on VMware's technology partnership with SAP can be found at www.vmware.com/SAP.

You can also attend a Webinar tomorrow entitled, "SAP Supports Windows in Production on VMware." Sign up for the Webinar at https://vmwareevents.webex.com/vmwareevents/onstage/g.php?p=130&t=m.

About VMware Inc.

VMware is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. Organizations of all sizes use VMware solutions to simplify their IT, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands. VMware is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and majority-owned by EMC Corp. For more information, visit www.vmware.com/.