Opsware Offers Strategy for Virtual Server Management

Opsware, a provider of Data Center Automation software, announced the company’s strategy for managing complex virtual server environments. At the company’s annual user conference, OPSWorld, held in San Jose, California, CEO Ben Horowitz discussed the little understood challenges of managing virtual servers. This complexity created by the rapid adoption of server virtualization and the accompanying rise in server images that need to be managed is described as reaching crisis proportions as IT departments struggle to keep up with the dramatically increased workload.

“The whole world is talking about virtualization as the next great panacea for IT,” said George Hamilton, Enterprise Computing & Networking Director, Yankee Group. “Virtualization offers great promise, but if you don’t accompany it with automated management, you risk creating bigger problems than those you solve. Opsware recognizes this potential and has articulated a comprehensive strategy for helping IT sidestep the pitfalls and enjoy the full benefits that virtualization has to offer.”

To combat these problems, Opsware has come out with a roadmap to automate the virtualized IT environment:

• Discover and map virtual environments – In today’s dynamic IT environment, it is increasingly difficult for enterprises to discover and track virtual servers. Opsware’s Data Center Automation software solves this challenge, clearly delineating between the physical world and virtual environment and through one single management console providing the ability to provision, view and track physical and virtual servers.
• Create virtual servers – Opsware will automate the process of creating virtual servers through a simple point-and-click interface that enables rapid creation of virtual machines for all virtual server platforms, including VMware, Sun Solaris, Microsoft Virtual Server and XenSource. Without this level of automation, IT organizations would have to use separate, disparate point tools, each requiring administrators to have specialized knowledge and expertise.
• Seamlessly track and manage physical and virtual relationships – With the massive complexity created by virtualization, enterprises are demanding an integrated view of their physical and virtual server environments, including the ability to track virtual machine dependencies. To ensure seamless management across physical and virtual environments, Opsware provides a graphical representation of dependencies between physical and virtual servers and automatically tracks when virtual servers are moved across physical servers.
• Manage across multiple virtualization platforms – System administrators typically rely on different tools to manage various virtualization platforms. Opsware enables IT to manage across all virtualization platforms from a single solution, minimizing platform specific training and saving significant time and resources.
• Automate the lifecycle of a large number of virtual servers – Until now, IT could not manage virtualized environments in the same manner as traditional servers. Opsware’s solution allows enterprises to automate the full lifecycle of virtual servers including provisioning, patching, and compliance, providing the deepest level of visibility and control across the IT environment from a single console.

“Virtualization has the potential to deliver tremendous cost savings, both from better hardware utilization as well as through the ability to standardize software stacks across heterogeneous environments,” said Tim Howes, CTO of Opsware Inc. “However, you can only achieve these benefits — and avoid huge IT management nightmares — if you automate the management of virtualized environments. Opsware offers greater capability than anyone to do this today, and the roadmap we’re announcing will deliver comprehensive capabilities suitable for even the most complex global enterprises.”