VMLogix

VMLogix, Inc. operated as a key player in the virtualization management space, offering solutions tailored for the software development lifecycle. Founded in 2004 by Ravi Gururaj, the company established its headquarters in Palo Alto, California, with a significant engineering team based in Bangalore, India.

The firm's core business focused on providing virtual machine management applications that enabled software companies and IT organizations to streamline and automate their processes. VMLogix's flagship product, LabManager, allowed development and quality assurance teams to create, share, and deploy on-demand, production-like environments. This capability was crucial for consolidating test lab infrastructures and automating the software build, testing, and staging phases. The business model centered on licensing its software, which supported all major virtualization platforms of its time, including those from VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix. This multi-hypervisor support was a significant differentiator, offering clients flexibility and preventing vendor lock-in.

In October 2006, VMLogix secured $3.5 million in a Series A funding round from investors including Bain Capital Ventures and Trilogy. A pivotal moment in the company's trajectory came in 2007 when Sameer Dholakia joined as CEO. Dholakia, who held degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, was the first US employee and was instrumental in building out the company's product, sales, and marketing teams. Under his leadership, VMLogix doubled its revenues annually and secured a multi-million-dollar OEM deal, which eventually led to its acquisition.

On August 30, 2010, Citrix Systems announced its agreement to acquire VMLogix for undisclosed terms, a deal that closed in the third quarter of that year. The acquisition was a strategic move for Citrix to bolster its OpenCloud infrastructure platform by integrating VMLogix's lifecycle automation and self-service capabilities. This allowed Citrix to enhance its XenServer virtualization platform with an intuitive, self-service interface, simplifying how customers could build and manage private and hybrid clouds. The deal was influenced by a pre-existing OEM relationship where VMLogix's Lab Manager was bundled with premium editions of Citrix's XenServer.

Keywords: VMLogix, virtual machine management, virtualization lifecycle automation, software testing automation, test lab infrastructure, application deployment, private cloud management, public cloud management, Citrix OpenCloud, XenServer, Sameer Dholakia, Ravi Gururaj, Bain Capital Ventures, multi-hypervisor support, quality assurance automation, software staging, on-demand environments, development and test, IT process automation, acquired by Citrix