VMware wants to be an enterprise management software vendor with vCenter Operations and the other components of the vCloud Suite. As impressive as VMware is, going it alone against Microsoft, IBM, HP, and CA on the management software front is not a strategy destined for success.
VMware Re-Packages and Re-Prices the vCenter Operations Management Suite
Bundling the Foundation Edition of vCenter Operations into every edition of vSphere is VMware’s strategy for seeding its customer base with just enough of vC OPS to entice customers to move up and purchase a higher level edition of the suite. However, the least expensive version of vCenter Operation is now $125 per VM instead of $50 per VM. Finally support has been added for monitoring OS instances that run on other hypervisors and other clouds.
News: Quest Software acquires vKernel
Quest buying vKernel is just the first in a series of steps that Quest will have to take to fully compete with VMware vCenter Operations – and starts the process of determining how the capacity, performance and availability management ecosystem for VMware will react in response.
Is it Time to Reorganize Data Center Operations?
If automated IT Operations is going to succeed and deliver its promised benefits then IT Operations is going to have to get reorganized – with supporting hardware teams part of the virtualization team. Furthermore Application Operations will have to be instantiated as a function that is responsible for the actual service level delivered by the applications to their constituents.
Your VMworld 2011 Enterprise Virtualization Performance and Capacity Management Short List
Enterprises considering virtualization performance and capacity management solutions at VMworld 2011 should take a look at VMware vC OPS Enterprise, Netuitive, Quest vFloglight, NetApp Insight Balance, Reflex Systems, Veeam nworks, vKernel, Virtual Instruments, VMTurbo, Xangati, and Zenoss. Read the full post for the evaluation criteria.
vCenter Operations – vSphere Performance, Capacity and Configuration Management with Self Learning Analytics
VMware has combined resource monitoring, capacity management, configuration management, with the self-learning analytics that came from Integrien into vCenter Operations – creating an attractive bundle of functionality for the management of the performance and capacity of vSphere environments.