Microsoft India has joined forces with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to set up a Microsoft-TCS virtualization Center of Excellence (CoE) in Chennai, to help drive adoption of virtualization technology in India.

The Center, which has been devised to assist customers crystallize virtualization, will provide them with the right approach to applying and managing virtualization across IT architectural layers viz server, machine, application and desktop in their business environments.

“Virtualization is one of the most disruptive technologies in the world today... .Through our partnership with TCS to launch the virtualization CoE, we will address this crucial market need and help customers land the benefits of virtualization technology in accordance with their business requirements”, said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Microsoft India.

As a part of the arrangement, the Microsoft will provide customers with end-to-end virtualization requirements – with technologies and solutions spanning across the datacenter to the desktop, and from implementation to management (both virtual and physical resources).

Therein, Microsoft will provide technologies like Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 to showcase virtualization scenarios to customers.

“The Microsoft-TCS virtualization CoE is an initiative aimed at enabling our customers rapidly realize the advantages of this revolutionary technology. Based on robust virtualization solutions from Microsoft – the CoE will leverage best of breed technologies that are best suited to help our customers stay ahead in today’s competitive market environment”, said P.R. Krishnan (Vice President & Global Head IT Infrastructure Services, TCS).