By Charlene O'Hanlon

In an effort to advance its cloud computing capabilities and provide more services for its service provider partners, Citrix is acquiring virtualization management vendor VMLogix.

The purchase will expand Citrixs lifecycle management capabilities to its OpenCloud platform and give partners the ability to create self-service portals to its XenServer virtualization platform, which in turn will enable their end-user customers to manage their on-premise private cloud applications via a Web-based platform.

The company also has added features to its OpenCloud platform that include enhanced networking and interoperability capabilities. Service providers using the OpenCloud platform now will be able to manage a mix of all of their cloud environments, both public and private, from different cloud providers by using one management console.

With the OpenCloud enhancements, Citrix also will be integrating more with OpenStack, the open-source cloud management and orchestration stack it is co-developing with Rackspace, NASA, Dell and other technology and cloud service providers. OpenStack supports multiple virtualization options, enabling cloud providers to give customers open integration as well as a more consistent view of both private and public cloud workloads, according to the company.

In the race for virtualized services in the cloud, Citrix is a distant second behind VMWare, but its technology is a favorite among cloud service providers because it relies on open source technology, enabling easier integration and scaling. The addition of technology from VMLogix will create further opportunities for service providers who are hesitant to join the cloud fray over concerns of no longer owning” their data. The self-service management portal will help alleviate those concerns.

Citrixs announcement also helps kick off VMWorld in San Francisco this week, where cloud computing and IT as a service will be main themes of the conference.

The updates to OpenCloud will be available to certified cloud providers beginning later this year, and some will also be included in the next release of the Citrix XenServer virtualization platform.