SAP is going to support VMware ESX Server in 64-bit Windows and Linux production environments.

The German software maker, many of whose customers have been using VMware for a while now anyway, said Wednesday that it had certified hardware from Dell, Fujitsu, HP and IBM, something SAP's rival Oracle doesn't do because it's also competing with VMware.

VMware says it's been working for "quarters" on the certification project with SAP, ascribing the time it took to SAP's finicky testing of its mission-critical business apps.

Anyway, VMware Infrastructure is the only virtualization platform that supports SAP on both Windows and Linux on industry-standard boxes - particularly Windows since there's little SAP on Linux, the company said.

It's supposed to reduce server sprawl, eliminate downtime and make server provisioning easier, reportedly cutting an SAP installation to minutes rather than days.

Incidentally, Credit Suisse has just downgraded SAP to an "underperfrom" and kicked it off its European Focus List. Among other things, it thinks SAP's delivery of its new BusinessByDesign on-demand product has slipped maybe three-six months.

Meanwhile, the latest version of VMware Infrastructure 3, including ESX Server 3.5 and VirtualCenter 2.5, is now generally available. The release is supposed to offer increased automation, improved overall infrastructure availability and higher performance on mission-critical workloads.

There are performance optimizations in ESX Server 3.5 like support for paravirtualized Linux and large memory pages that Java apps and Oracle databases ought to appreciate.

VMware Infrastructure runs $995, $2,995 or $5,750 for two processors depending on which of the three editions of increasing functionality you buy.

VMware expects to have Infrastructure 3 in Japanese, simplified Chinese and German versions in the first half of next year.

VMware says it's got 60 organizations in its co-development partner programs and that 350 of their developers are actively working with VMware on projects including integration with its Infrastructure update.