Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced today it has acquired Q-layer, a cloud computing company that automates the deployment and management of both public and private clouds. The Q-layer organization, based in Belgium, will become part of Sun's Cloud Computing business unit which develops and integrates cloud computing technologies, architectures and services.

The Q-layer technology simplifies cloud management and allows users to quickly provision and deploy applications, a key component in Sun's strategy to enable building public and private clouds. As businesses continue to rely more on technology to drive mission-critical processes, the agility of the datacenter determines the flexibility of the entire company. Q-layer software supports instant provisioning of services such as servers, storage, bandwidth and applications, enabling users to scale their own environments to meet their specific requirements.

"Sun's open, network-centric approach coupled with optimized systems, software and services provides the critical building blocks for private and public cloud offerings," said David Douglas, senior vice president of Cloud Computing and chief sustainability officer, Sun Microsystems. "Q-layer's technology and expertise will enhance Sun's offerings, simplifying cloud management and speeding application deployment."

Cloud computing brings compute and data resources onto the Web and offers higher efficiency, massive scalability and faster and easier software development. Sun is an ideal advisor and partner for companies that want to build cloud computing facilities within their organizations, and for companies and service providers that want to build publicly available cloud computing services, the company says. Sun has the open technology, expertise and vision to help companies build, run and use their own clouds, the company maintains. For more information on Sun's cloud computing strategy, visit: Sun/cloudcomputing.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed as the company said the transaction is not "material" to Sun.

About Q-layer

Q-layer is the leading enabler of cloud computing software for enterprises and service providers. With the Q-layer software, datacenter managers can drastically increase the efficiency of their datacenter and give their users the agility they need to obtain their business goals. Q-layer was founded in 2005 and is the first company to introduce full datacenter virtualization by integrating server, network and storage virtualization.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision--"The Network is the Computer"--Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at www.sun.com.