VMware has delivered the update to its core virtualization platform "virtual data center OS" - renamed vSphere - and Thursday announced its general availability the world over.

The updated vSphere 4 software, which has been activates for download from VMware's Web site, is now on sale. Thursday onwards, customers can place their orders for any of the six different, wide-ranging versions of vSphere - comprising, among others, an Essentials package for smaller businesses, as well as an Enterprise Plus edition for large data centers.

VMware has come a long way with vSphere, which indicates a giant leap forward for the company from its current product - VMware Infrastructure 3. VMware has positioned vSphere as a "cloud operating system," which will enable companies to execute a `central' administration of servers, storage and networks in their data center, just like in one big computer.

The vSphere 4 includes updates to VMware's core hypervisor - thereby facilitating its efficient handling of large databases and other more challenging applications.

Talking about the extensive benefits of vSphere, VMware said that the software increases the amount of memory available to virtual machines by four times; improves network throughput by three times; and brings about a two-times improvement in the maximum I/O operations to touch over 200,000 per second.