Egenera to Deploy Blades in Military Hospitals

Egenera, which specializes in data center virtualization, will deploy its BladeFrame systems at more than 100 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) military treatment facilities worldwide, the company said last week. The assignment is part of a $60 million contract between the DoD and federal integrator, Apptis Inc.

I noted the release because it seems curious that we haven't seen more IPO chatter about Egenera, given the performance of the IPOs for virtualization plays VMWare (VMW) and BladeLogic (BLOG). Egenera has raised more than $150 million in VC money since 2000. The company filed plans to go public in 2005 and later withdrew the IPO, citing market conditions. It would be hard to argue that current market conditions aren't welcoming to virtualization specialists, given that VMWare shares have tripled in about six weeks.

Egenera will install equipment at 104 facilities, totaling 208 Egenera systems and 680 blades. Egenera's data center virtualization architecture, called a Processing Area Network (PAN), replaces physical components with software, allowing servers to be consolidated and easily shared and backed up.

A major factor in Egenera's selection was a third-party report that found Egenera's technology would reduce the DoD's operating expenses by 32 percent, and lash its energy usage by 80 percent (once consolidation is completed).