VMware this week is expected to unveil software designed to let customers group compute resources into a virtual pool that can be allocated to workloads depending on application demands, eliminating the need for manual intervention.

Called Infrastructure 3, the product expands VMware's features by zeroing in on automation and high availability. VMware made its first move into so-called utility computing in 2003 when it introduced VirtualCenter, management software that included VMotion technology to move running virtual machines among physical servers. Customers can move virtual machines, but the process requires a great deal of manual intervention. With Infrastructure 3, management of virtual machines is more automated, says Patrick Lin, director of data center platforms at VMware.

"VMotion let you move virtual machines around, but you had to understand exactly what the performance was on that virtual machine at a given point in time and you had to manually move it where you wanted it to go. You had to watch things closely," Lin says. "We've automated all that. So now you can power up a virtual machine and not have to think about it."

Ed Baldwin, senior network engineer at Enbridge Energy Company in Houston, which has been beta-testing Infrastructure 3, says the automation features are a plus because he now can focus management resources in more productive areas. Previously, Baldwin had to manually check resource availability to ensure virtual machines were running on the best physical server.

"The distributed resource scheduling is going to be an added bonus because I won't have to sit there and wonder, 'Is that machine really on the right host?' With Infrastructure 3 doing its checks and balances to determine which host it needs to be on, that's going to be a great benefit for us," he says.

VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler is one of several new software products that come bundled in Infrastructure 3, along with VMware's flagship ESX Server and VirtualCenter.

VMware is "realizing that they've got to improve platform management as large companies take these virtual environments into production," says Stephen Elliot, a research manager at IDC. By raising the focus, it also brings VMware into greater competition with partners such as IBM and HP, which long have focused on creating tools to better manage virtual resources. Elliot says customers should expect to continue to see higher-level management features from VMware, including a larger focus on security as virtual environments play a growing role in data centers.

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