Sun Microsystemsand VMware today announced an OEM agreement to expand their virtualization offerings.

Starting today, Sun is offering the VMware Infrastructure product suite on Sun hardware systems with full support from Sun. The agreement benefits systems integrators and channel partners by providing a fully supported, seamlessly integrated solution from these two technology providers.

Sun and VMware will continue their qualification program of VMware products on Sun systems. The companies will also work to ensure that the Solaris Operating System will continue to be a guest operating system on VMware virtualization software, and VMware Infrastructure will be a datacenter virtualization run-time and management stack on Sun x64 systems. The two companies plan to also collaborate on system management configuration, deployment and monitoring for each other’s products.

Selected Sun x64 servers are available for a free 60-day trial as part of Sun’s Try-and-Buy program, which includes a free 60-day evaluation of VMware Infrastructure. Sun also offers its own complete virtualization portfolio that includes unified software management tools and virtualization of operating systems, servers, storage, desktops and chips - both inside and outside the box.

In conjunction with today’s announcement, Sun will showcase Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Software 2.0 during VMworld Europe 2008. This solution leverages VMware ESX Server and VMware VirtualCenter to allow customers to securely access centralized desktop environments over a variety of network connections. Today’s agreement ensures frontline support and allows customers to purchase the complete solution directly from Sun, including Sun Ray virtual display thin clients, Sun VDI Software 2.0 and VMware virtualization software.