Everything this week is VMworld, or should I say VMware related. VMware for example introduced a new management package – Vmware vCenter – which lets administrators simplify and create more flexible IT service, while reducing operating costs.
The VMware vCenter family is a framework for policy centric, service level agreement enforcement that includes provisioning, monitoring and performance management capabilities. The family consists of VMware vCenter AppSpeed, which provides visibility into virtual and physical environments, and vCenter CapacityIQ, which allows capacity modeling and results in forecasting shortfalls, as well as the ability to reclaim excess capacity.
The family also includes configuration control, Site Recovery Manager, LifeCycle Manager, Chargeback and vCenter Lab Manager. ConfigControl allows visibility into the virtual environment and allows compliance of the configuration state. Site Recovery Manager automates the recovery process and enables disaster recovery. Lifecycle Manager is an automated process for managing the life cycle of virtual machines and Chargeback allows businesses to allocate and report on the costs of virtual machine implementations. The Lab Manager is used to create pre-production virtual environments. Each of the components of the vCenter family is sold separately on a per processor basis. With the exception of CapacityIQ and ConfigControl, all products are available now.
CapacityIQ is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of this year; ConfigControl is expected to be available in 2010.
The company also rolled out a new service for first-time virtualization users called VMware GO, which automates the installation and configuration of virtualization environments with VMware ESXi. The Web-based VMware Go service is free as is ESXi. It lets SMB customers try out VMware without spending money. VMware Go is expected to be available as a free service in 2010.
VMware also inked a deal with Intel to sell vSphere 4 with Intel board and systems starting in the fourth quarter of this year. This deal will enable resellers and integrators to better service SMBs using Intel white box processors.
It is going to be an exciting week at VMworld, with many new products and technologies. Watch this spot for details as the week progresses.
