Augmenting its line of software to support cloud deployments, VMware has created a package for running the Postgres database in a virtualized environment, the company announced Monday.

Postgres will be the first of a number of databases that the company plans to package in this format, all of which will be offered under the name of VMware vFabric Data Director, said David McJannet, VMware director of cloud and application services.

"Many enterprise customers have hundreds of large databases that are unmanaged and unsecured," McJannet said. "By using a virtual container to provide a single container, you can go a long way to reducing database sprawl."

VFabric Postgres consists of a copy of the open source Postgres database packaged in a VMware virtual machine. With this software, administrators can configure the databases in a standardized way, and offer them as templates to developers and users, McJannet said. They then could offer the databases from a self-service portal.

The package would also minimize the amount of work needed to prepare a database for use in a VMware-based cloud, McJannet said. VFabric is VMware's line of software for running Spring-based applications in a cloud configuration.

VMware plans to issue newer versions of this software as Postgres itself is updated. Administrators, however, will have to move the data from the old package to the newer one, or update the database from within the virtual container itself.

This is not the first organization to offer a cloud-ready version of Postgres, also known as PostgreSQL. Last week, EnterpriseDB announced that it would be releasing software for managing multiple Postgres instances, called Postgres Plus Cloud Server.

VFabric Postgres will be available on the company's Cloud Foundry cloud service, as well as in stand-alone software.

The new product is one of a number of announcements the company made for its VMworld conference being held this week. The company has also launched a service, called Global Connect, and a portal, called vCloud.vmware.com, both designed for customers to connect with third party VMware-based cloud service providers. The company launched a disaster recovery service and updated its VMware vCloud Connector, now at version 1.5.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com