Sun has released its xVM Ops Center product for datacenter virtualization management. The product itself will be available for download at no charge, with support services available for a fee.

A distribution of Sun xVM Ops Center will be made available via free download. Commercial software subscriptions that include support and network delivered services are aggressively priced – starting at $100 (USD) per managed server and ranging up to $350 (USD), depending on customer selected feature set. A $10,000 (USD) Satellite Server subscription includes an on-site enterprise installation service and hands-on training.

As part of the company’s commitment to the open source community, Sun will also release the source code used to build Sun’s xVM Ops Center to the OpenxVM.org community under the GNU General Public License version three (GPLv3).

Sun will provide ongoing code releases to OpenxVM.org, starting with the contribution of the Common Agent Container source code on Dec. 10, 2007. In addition, the first commercial release of Sun xVM Ops Center is expected to be available on Jan. 8, 2008.

Building on Sun’s commitment to open standards and customer choice, Sun will continue to innovate the Sun xVM platform and collaborate with open source communities. The first of Sun’s contributions will be the Common Agent Container (CAC) code to the OpenxVM.org community under GPLv3. The CAC is the heart of the management infrastructure for many of Sun’s products, including the Sun xVM Ops Center. In addition, Sun plans to make the entire code base used by the xVM Ops Center available to the OpenxVM.org community in the first quarter of 2008.