Vendors Set For Virtualization Party Week

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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 $999, 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.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.