VMware formally entered the market for virtual lifecycle management today,
unveiling Lab Manager at its VMWorld user conference in Los Angeles.
Lab Manager, which comes from assets VMware acquired through it purchase of
Akimbi Systems, takes a pool of servers running VMware Infrastructure
software, sits in front of them and provides a self-service interface.
Developers and professionals can log in to this portal and request any
configuration they need from a library of multi-machine configurations, said
James Phillips, senior director of virtual software lifecycle automation at
VMware.
The choice will then be deployed to the pool of servers, and the developer
can determine whether or not a virtualization server will work if deployed.
Testing and troubleshooting applications are a big deal for vendors these
days.
Getting the right configuration in a complex data center environment can
shave months off the time programmers spend on manual system setup and
resource provisioning, which in turn saves an IT shop costs.
This is no less important for virtualization, in which several instances of
an application or operating system can run one physical machine.
Lab Manager does other tricks.
To counter inefficient bug reproduction, Phillips said Lab Manager provides
“closed-loop” defect reporting, troubleshooting and resolution, taking
snapshots of virtual servers bringing them to a shared library and assigning
them a LiveLink URL that engineers can enter into a bug report.
A developer then can click on the LiveLink URL to access the virtual server
in the precise state captured by the engineers and fix the bug.
VMware Lab Manager also provides secure access to a remote software lab that
can host remote developer desktops and provide remote access to shared
configurations, curbing the time-consuming and expensive replication of
equipment in offshore or partner labs.
The public beta of VMware Lab Manager is available for download now, but the
finished software will be generally available next month.
VMware Lab Manager Server will start at $15,000 as a standalone product, and
starts at $35,000 when bundled with VMware Infrastructure 3.
Like the application lifecycle management peddled by IBM, Borland and
Microsoft, virtual lifecycle management is catching on, triggered first by
startups like Surgient and VMLogix.
VMware’s buy and subsequent absorption of Akimbi could open the floodgates
to acquisitions by other larger vendors with an appetite for improving
virtual server management.
Other startups include Surgient and VMLogix, which recently announced a $3.5
million booster shot of venture capital from Bain Capital Ventures.
Interestingly, VMLogix’ flagship product is also called LabManager.
