VMware boosted its application performance management capabilities and gained R&D facilities in Israel Wednesday with the acquisition of B-hive. VMware, which is owned by EMC but run as an independent company, has made nine acquisitions over the past three years aimed at improving the security, management and services tied to its virtualization offerings. Here's a quick look at each purchase:

May 2005: VMware buys AOG, a capacity planning vendor that analyzes server resource utilization. AOG software is now sold as VMware Capacity Planner.

June 2006: VMware buys Akimbi Systems, whose Slingshot product allows IT managers to build a software test infrastructure to automate the setup and teardown of multiple virtual machine environments

April 2007: VMware buys desktop virtualization vendor Propero, which makes a connection broker that controls which virtual desktop machines remote users connect to.

August 2007: VMware buys security vendor Determina, which provides real-time information about emerging threats and attacks.

September 2007: VMware buys Dunes, a business process automation and management vendor that helps automate the provisioning and retiring of virtual machines.

October 2007: VMware buys Sciant, an IT outsourcing company.

January 2008: VMware buys the services-related assets of Foedus, a provider of products and services for virtualization infrastructure.

January 2008: VMware buys application virtualization vendor Thinstall, a company whose software for provisioning, deploying and updating virtual desktop environments can be coupled with VMware's own desktop virtualization technology.

May 2008: VMware acquires application performance management vendor B-hive, a vendor that sells a virtual appliance which gives customers visibility into how applications are performing and instructs VMware's software to reallocate resources based on changing needs.