IT operations and infrastructure engineers face several challenges in the preparation and delivery of applications as services to be consumed by end customers. Some of the key challenges include:

1. Infrastructure management including the sprawl of virtual machines, reproducing pristine production configurations and archiving of multi-machine configurations
2. Developing an application staging process (with customized workflows to capture every stage and user access to the stage) and enforcing the use of the process
3. Presenting a single, unified view of the staging of every service and bringing together multiple teams to collaborate on the testing and acceptance of the service
4. Delivering software upgrades and patches to production systems and reducing the associated risk of production downtime

VMLogix StageManager – What is it?

VMLogix StageManager helps IT operations engineers create a customizable staging workflow and stage (i.e., host/promote/demote multi machine configurations) the applications through the workflow for comprehensive testing and production readying. VMLogix StageManager is hypervisor agnostic and can manage virtual machines (VMs) across leading hypervisors from Citrix, Microsoft, Sun and VMware. Furthermore, StageManager provides powerful IT administration control via the product over the staging process.

VMLogix StageManager manages the pre-production and staging infrastructure for IT operations. The focus is on allowing users and teams to create a customizable workflow that defines the staging process for IT pre-production and production deployment. StageManager allows users to easily create multi-machine configurations and then migrate between stages with a single mouse click. The product retains the best practices of a management application working with multi-machine configurations including allowing users to create network fenced configurations and leverage delta-disk technology. VMLogix StageManager helps reduce the risk of downtime, improve/enforce your staging process and reduce the IT costs related to service staging.

Virtualization Platforms Supported by VMLogix StageManager

The following virtualization platforms will be supported in VMLogix StageManager

• Citrix XenServer v5.0 (when installed on Citrix certified hardware only)
• Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows 2008 full installation (Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Datacenter edition x64, SP1) (when running on Microsoft Windows 2008 certified hardware only)
• VMware ESX v3.5 Update 2 (when installed on VMware certified hardware only)
• For POCs and Product Evaluations: VMware Server v1.0.4 on Microsoft Windows 2003 Server SP2

Availability and Next Steps

VMLogix StageManager will be available in beta early in 2009. You can sign up here to receive a notification about the StageManager beta program.