Infor, VMWare team for virtualized ERP

IDG News Service - Infor has teamed up with VMWare to help customers of its Infor LN ERP software run on VMWare's latest virtualization technology, opening a door to cloud deployments and potentially lower infrastructure costs.

The companies have created a reference architecture that customers and partners can use to create a virtual appliance with VMWare products such as vSphere, Cloud Director and vFabric, according to the announcement, which was made Tuesday.

Customers will be able to deploy the appliances to either on-premises or cloud infrastructures, Infor said.

A whitepaper on the reference architecture will be made available within the next few weeks, said Ali Shadman, senior vice president of business cloud and Upgrade/S at Infor.

"This was a way to create the foundation for customers and partners to build virtual appliances," he said. "As we move forward we're going to create a hard offering around LN and other apps that are a good fit."

Infor is hoping to work with customers on the virtual appliances and will likely have packaged products out within six months, Shadman said.

It's planning to take whatever time it needs, however. "[ERP systems] run companies," he said. "We need to be very confident and sure of our steps."

The VMWare announcement follows a similar one Infor made with Red Hat in September.

Infor customers have expressed "high interest" in virtualization and virtual appliances, and many are already VMWare users, according to Shadman.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com