VMware hares off and buys a Rabbit

SPRINGSOURCE, which is a VMware division, has bought Rabbit Technologies, a Blighty based open source messaging outfit.

Springsource said it has a cunning plan to add the RabbitMQ open messaging system into its suite of Java based middleware technologies.

The big idea is that it will reduce the complexity associated with development, deployment and management of enterprise applications. It is not clear how much money changed hands in the deal.

Messaging becomes a little more important as outfits use cloud environments. The new forms of messaging have to be lightweight and extremely fast.

RabbitMQ has been doing rather well and Springsource had been using it a lot. The open source, standards based messaging system lets applications or components of applications more effectively communicate with each other.

Rod Johnson, general manager of Springsource, said that messaging has always been a key infrastructure element used in the creation of enterprise applications.

However cloud applications require a fundamentally different messaging infrastructure. Incorporating RabbitMQ to the Springsource package, it can extend its emerging application platform with another element of technology that is critical to modern virtual and cloud deployment models, he said. µ