Dell Closes the Loop on VM Life Cycle Management with Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5

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ROUND ROCK, Texas, Feb. 5, 2013 — Dell Software announced today new features with the release of Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 from Dell acquisition VKernel, a noted provider of enterprise-class capacity management and performance monitoring products for virtualized data centers and cloud environments. Available now, Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 closes the loop of VM life cycle management with new capabilities that include hardware modeling and automated VM decommissioning that maximize resource efficiency, resulting in reduced capital expenditures in virtualized data centers.

Supporting Resources:

• VKernel: http://www.vkernel.com/
• Foglight vOPS Standard: http://www.vkernel.com/foglight-vops-standard
• More VKernel news: http://www.vkernel.com/company/press
• Twitter:  http://twitter.com/VKernel
• Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/VKernel
  
  

Efficient Hardware Purchasing and Capacity Usage Key for Capital Cost Savings 

The main business driver for many virtualization projects is capital cost reduction. Savings are gained from the enhanced resource efficiency that virtualization provides, decreasing the need for expensive hardware. To gain these savings, robust capacity planning must occur not only for VM provisioning inside installed hardware, but also for how much hardware must be purchased to support the growth of the environment. At the same time, VMs that have outlived their usefulness must be quickly decommissioned. This includes not only powering off the VM, but also removing all files associated with that VM. 

VM Life Cycle Management Leads to Efficient Hardware Purchasing and Capacity Usage

To gain maximum resource efficiency, virtualized data centers must holistically plan for capacity: environment growth planning must begin when budgeting for hardware purchases and then continue on to determine where the VM will be optimally placed within installed hardware. During production life, VMs must be continuously reviewed and adjusted for sizing to ensure that an environment can maintain maximum efficiency. When a VM outlives its useful life, it should then be removed as quickly as possible to make room for new VMs. The management of the creation, production and then retirement phases of a VM corresponds to VM life cycle management. If any phase in the life cycle is not correctly managed, an environment will suffer inefficiencies that will impact a virtualization project’s financial return.

Foglight vOPS Standard – formerly referred to as vOPS Server Standard - has historically provided functionality to plan for VMs in already purchased hardware, and to manage VMs that were live. The new release of Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 will help virtual admins close the loop for management over the VM life cycle, allowing for effective management of the retirement of unnecessary VMs, and ability to gain a holistic capacity planning approach that includes planning for hardware purchasing. Specifically, Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 will make available:

• Hardware modeling – System administrators can simulate hardware refreshes, adding hosts to clusters, or adding entire clusters to a virtual environment. The modeled hardware capacity can then be further modeled out to account for VM movement, additions or decommissions.
• Automated VM Decomissioning – VMs can now be scheduled to be automatically decommissioned. This complements existing optimization functionality that recognizes related files for unused VMs and automates their removed to open up capacity for new VMs.

These new features combined with the previous capabilities in Foglight vOPS Standard serve to manage each step along a VM’s life cycle, ensuring that no unnecessary resources are purchased or misused. These features when put to use will offer immediate savings, allowing for adjustments to upcoming hardware budgeting, and the removal of unnecessary VMs and their associated files.  

Additional Functionality

Additional enhancements in Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 include:

• New Host and Datastore Diagnosis Screen – This release extends the user interface for a single diagnosis page for all of an object’s issues to hosts and datastores. 
• Customizable Tab Layout – Users will now be able to customize their sessions by enabling or disabling which tabs they’d like to view.

“We’re pleased to provide our customers with management capabilities over each phase in a VM’s life cycle,” said Alex Rosemblat, product marketing manager, Dell. “The new capabilities in Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 will not only help our customers save money with increased resource efficiency, but will also make hardware planning and VM management significantly easier through automation.”

General Availability
Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 is available now for a 30-day trial from www.vkernel.com and www.quest.com. The Japanese version of Foglight vOPS Standard 6.5 will be available in Q2 2013. Pricing starts at $549 per socket. 

About Dell

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com and http://www.quest.com.

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