VMware Unit Buys Java Cache Company

SpringSource, the Java web developer which VMware bought in August 2009, has bought GemStone Systems, to get hold of a distributed caching engine which can handle increasing workloads in virtualised data centres.

SpringSource and VMware don’t have distributed caching, which is becoming increasingly desirable as workloads increase and speed and performance requirements mount.

Bought by VMware last year, Springsource is now making purchases of its own. As well as in-memory Java cache maker Gemstone, it bought open messaging software maker Rabbit Technologies in April. Terms of the Gemstone deal were not disclosed.

Lightweight programming platform needs a Java cache

SpringSource’s Spring Framework provides a lightweight programming platform that makes applications portable across open-source and commercial application systems from IBM, Oracle, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and others.

However, the platform does not feature distributed Java caching, which is becoming a much-desired data center component as workloads increase and speed and performance requirements mount.

SpringSource will integrate GemStone’s IP into Spring Framework and SpringSource’s own Apache-based Web server.

GemStone uses distributed memcache to handle messaging of high volumes of data queries while providing many other storage-related functions, including partitioning and replication of block data.

GemStone can be deployed on a dedicated commodity-type server. Functions of this type used to require a mainframe or dedicated Unix or Solaris server to handle use cases such as high-volume financial transactions, scientific research, oil and gas exploration, and government agency tasks.

“VMware’s acquisition of GemStone is further validation of in-memory caching as a powerful approach to scaling enterprise applications and improving their performance,” Terracotta CEO Amit Pandey said in an e-mail to eWEEK. “It also shows that VMware understands that this is a large and growing market, due to the huge demand from enterprise customers to scale out applications on cloud infrastructures.”

Terracotta, a competing San Francisco-based infrastructure maker that provides scalable, high-availability middleware for Java applications, recently acquired its own distributed caching specialist, Ehcache, maker of an already widely used product.

“What is a bit surprising is the company VMware chose, given SpringSource’s reputation for ease of use, which in our view is the foundation of their market position,” Pandey said. “Integrating the technologies will be a challenge, especially given that GemStone deployments are mostly in specialized use cases in some banks.”