Several vendors are brushing up on their virtualization software chops this week.
BladeLogic, which makes software to automate tedious datacenter tasks, released BladeLogic Virtualization Manager as a new add-on module for the BladeLogic Operations Manager suite. The software lets IT administrators deploy, delete, manage, patch and audit virtual and physical servers.
Virtualization technologies create some efficiencies for companies because they allow admins to run many operating systems or applications on one computer server. But while this function reduces the number of physical machines, it also creates what some harried admins are calling virtual server sprawl.
BladeLogic’s new Virtualization Manager is designed to help admins corral those multiple virtual servers. Perhaps the key to this product is that it natively supports ESX, the enterprise virtualization software that made VMware so successful and boosted the company to 95 percent year-over-year sales growth.
Vance Loiselle, vice president of marketing, said the software includes a unified console to let admins conduct total server and application management on virtual configurations the same way they would physical servers.
Virtualization Manager will cost customers who already license the BladeLogic Operations Manager $600; those who don’t own this software can pay $2,000 per physical ESX device.
Virtualization Manager joins similar products from VMware, which manages its own virtual servers and Cassatt, which launched the Cassatt Collage Cross-Virtualization Manager last year.
Not to be outdone, VMware rival SWSoft rolled out the Virtuozzo Enterprise Starter Pack to let new users take a drink from the operating system virtualization fountain before they buy the Virtuozzo enterprise product, which partitions a single Windows or Linux operating system.
For $1,198, companies can use the pack to conduct a server consolidation project for Windows or Linux. The software pack accommodates up to four virtual environments and includes a single or dual CPU server license; management toolset for provisioning, monitoring and backup; and one year of support and maintenance.
The pack is essentially a mini version of the company’s flagship Virtuozzo server virtualization software, sporting “the full range of capabilities and tools of the full Virtuozzo product,” according to a company statement.
The software includes VZP2V, a tool that allows for easy migration from a physical server to a Virtuozzo virtual server and features a simple upgrade path to the full Virtuozzo package.
Rounding out the virtualization news today is Zeus Technology, which entered the virtual desktop market with the launch of ZXTM VDB (Virtual Desktop Broker). ZXTM VDB provides secure remote access to desktops that are running in virtual environments such as VMware’s ESX Server or Microsoft’s Virtual Server.
Users will be able to connect to the computing resources they need via a thin client, such as the Wyse S10, or a computer with remote desktop protocol capabilities. Zeus said in a statement administrators can assign users desktop resources based on their requirements.
Virtual desktop software is gaining traction at a time when so much of the corporate workforce is becoming more mobile. Virtualizing desktops lets organizations consolidate desktop deployments to pare hardware and maintenance costs.
ZXTM VDB, available as software for servers running Linux, and in certain hardware clients, will compete with VMware’s ACE virtual desktop product and the SIMtone from XDS.
