Q-layer's technology meets with Sun's strategy to help companies build public and private clouds with tools that aim to simplify cloud management and allow users to provision and deploy applications.

"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 at Sun. "Q-layer's technology and expertise will enhance Sun's offerings, simplifying cloud management and speeding application deployment."

Data Center Agility

As businesses continue to rely more on technology to drive mission-critical processes, Sun is betting the agility of the data center will determine the flexibility of the entire company. Q-layer software supports provisioning of services such as servers, storage , bandwidth and applications, enabling users to scale their environments to meet their specific requirements.

Sun is working to position itself as an ideal adviser and partner for companies that want to build cloud computing within their organizations, and for companies and service providers that want to build publicly available cloud services. According to Zeus Kerravala, a vice president at the Yankee Group, this acquisition helps Sun's case.

"This acquisition is a strategic move for Sun," Kerravala said. "Clouds have become very popular. One of the things that's always dismayed me in technology innovation is the management of network applications, servers and other stuff always comes two to three years after the stuff."

Management Is Critical

Since much of the value of clouds is the ability to get the exact amount of resources to run a specific application or service when you need it, Kerravala said, management is critical. It may become even more critical in the future, he said, when companies begin using multiple cloud providers.

"It's going to become more and more critical to be able to understand what resources I am getting from which cloud provider, and how the orchestration of in-house and cloud-based resources impacts applications," Kerravala said. "I am not sure you can get that visibility without a strong management system . So it's good to see Sun focusing on this side of the market."

Belgium-based Q-layer was founded in 2005 and introduced full data-center virtualization by integrating server , network and storage resources. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, as the transaction is not material to Sun. Q-layer will become part of Sun's cloud-computing business unit, which develops and integrates cloud technologies, architectures and services.