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Products LabManager Product FAQ
Virtual Lab Automation (VLA) and VMLogix LabManager |
FAQ: Find out why VMLogix LabManager is a better fit for your
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VMLogix
LabManager also offers an easy to use and well documented API that allow
developers/testers to create plug-ins for other popular tools (e.g.,
integrations with Ant, Maven, CVS and Subversion can be easily built and leveraged as custom
operations). These APIs can also be used to integrate a complex workflow with external build or QA systems and processes.
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4. How does VMLogix LabManager compare with VMware's product?
VMLogix LabManager is an award winning enterprise/ISV solution that consolidates and automates lab infrastructure to deliver software applications quickly, cost-effectively and reliably.
The key differentiators between the two products are:
- VMLogix LabManager is hypervisor agnostic and supports hybrid virtual environments
- VMLogix LabManager provides powerful automation capabilities, including the ability to automate guest virtual machine operations
- VMLogix LabManager provides a significantly lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) solution even on VMware’s virtualization platform. VMLogix does not mandate you to invest in VMware Virtual Center. Furthermore, VMLogix LabManager works with VMware VI 3 Foundation from VMware and does not require you to purchase the more expensive VI 3 Standard or VI 3 Enterprise editions from VMware
VMLogix LabManager provides all the leading functionality for virtual lab automation that is available in a competing product from VMware. However, in addition to matching functionality from VMware, VMLogix LabManager provides the following additional benefits (that are un-available in VMware) that differentiate the product and make it a pioneer in the virtual lab automation arena. You can learn more about VMLogix by registering here or by making a request for a product evaluation.
| Differentiated functionality offered by VMLogix LabManager | The differentiated capability benefits | The benefit of the differentiated functionality |
|---|---|---|
| Support of hybrid virtual environments | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager is hypervisor agnostic and works with leading hypervisors from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware. This powerful capability helps you keep your options open and does not require you to lock-in to any one virtualization vendor |
| Guest VM automation – including machine synchronization, software stack provisioning, custom operations | Lab users | VMLogix LabManager provides users with true and complete automation and serves as a perfect complement and extension to any test/build automation infrastructure. This advanced level of automation helps users increase productivity manifold |
| Fully auditable license compliance management | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager helps administrators keep track of license use for audit (e.g., SOX) compliance. The product provides hard and soft compliance schemes possible in terms of compliance enforcement |
| Lab utilization reports (graphical and tabular views) | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager enables administrators to track lab utilization over time and appropriately plan and deploy lab capacity |
| Tag lab resources with custom fields | Lab users and administrators | VMLogix
LabManager helps easily filter all lab resources based on logical dimensions
(e.g., business units/lab location etc.). This makes searching and filtering
lab resources powerful and easy. Users can create and save custom search filters, including advanced search operators like “AND” and “OR”. |
| Virtual Machine snapshots | Lab users | VMLogix LabManager allows users to capture up to 10 snapshots for any VM. From a usability perspective this is useful when the VM snapshots are to be used in various test environments (vs. recreating the VMs from scratch). VMware Lab Manager allows users to create only a single (1) snapshot of a VM. |
| Flexibility in the mapping of storage to virtual hosts | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager can be configured to avoid single points of failure to access your storage in your lab design and system |
| Capture flash movies of guest VMs | Lab users | VMLogix LabManager puts things in perspective for users on specific runs as they are able to view a full run of the guest VM console |
| Create non-LDAP user teams and groups | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager does not have a dependency external LDAP systems to create LabManager users/groups |
| Integration with the IBM Rational Toolset | Lab users | VMLogix LabManager can work with powerful ALM tools to improve the integration of your lab with dev and test processes |
| Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager provides the best Return on Investment (VMware Lab Manager requires Microsoft Windows Server and VI 3) |
| Installation platforms | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager supports installation on both Microsoft Windows and Linux (CentOS) platforms |
| Open and Pluggable Security Model | Lab administrators | VMLogix LabManager provides powerful functionality when customizations are required for integrating with customer user authentication models (these customizations are often done in a matter of hours and do not require a separate build of the product) |
| Access to virtual labs over the WAN (Wide Area Network, outside the secure corporate network) | End users of the virtual labs | VMLogix LabManager can be configured to allow remote external users to access VM consoles over the WAN through the web browser without the need for a VPN client setup done explicitly by the end user. This is a tremendous benefit providing easy access to labs for end users over the WAN. |
| Efficient and quick deployment of a configuration that is deployed in multiple instances simultaneously | Lab users | End users do not experience a prolonged delay/wait and a “lock out of the system” when a configuration is deployed multiple times simultaneously. VMLogix LabManager deploys a configuration without requiring a parallel instance of the deployed configuration to be fully ‘switched on’. This is useful in test/demo and support scenarios where multiple end users accessing and deploying the same configuration do not experience large wait times. |
| Scheduled deployment of configurations | Lab users | End users can schedule the deployment of a configuration at a specified future date and time. This is particularly useful when it is combined with the powerful guest VM automation capabilities in VMLogix LabManager - for example, it allows users to schedule automated build and tests at specified times of the day. |
| Configuration and Job Leases | In VMLogix LabManager, users can define fine grained job deployment leases for every configuration. In addition, users have the option of defining lease expiration actions for every configuration (vs. a global setting for all configurations like in VMware Lab Manager). |
Table: Comparing VMLogix LabManager Features with VMware's Product
5. How does the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of VMLogix compare with VMware’s product?
VMLogix offers a dramatically lower TCO virtual lab automation solution when compared with VMware. Here is how the dependencies between the two products stack up (when comparing the basic server virtualization infrastructure requirements in each case, for a lab with 10 virtual hosts. Note that these are all server virtualization infrastructure costs only and does not include the virtual lab software license costs. Also, it assumes that your vendor choice for server virtualization is VMware in both cases, for a direct apples to apples comparison of the server virtualization infrastructure costs. You should keep in mind that VMLogix LabManager is also hypervisor agnostic and offers the choice of other hypervisors as well, should you choose not to go with VMware at the virtualization infrastructure level):
| Component | VMware Lab Manager with HA, DRS and vMotion support | VMware Lab Manager with HA support only | VMLogix LabManager |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of managed virtual hosts in the lab | 10 | 10 | |
| Bare Hypervisor Requirement (2 proc managed host) | 10 * $6,958 =
$69,580 | 10 * $3,624 = $36,240 Needs VI3 Standard, incl. 1 year Gold support | 10 * $1,540 =
$15,400 |
| vCenter Server (previously Virtual Center) – site wide license | $6,044 | $6,044 | No vCenter Server required |
| Cost of the Base Virtualization Infrastructure | = $75,624 | = $42,284 | = $15,400 |
| Almost 5X as expensive as a VMLogix VLA solution | More than 2X as expensive as a VMLogix VLA solution | Lowest cost, best of breed VLA solution |
As you will notice, the cost of the base virtualization infrastructure is significantly higher in the case of VMware when compared with VMLogix.
6. Do I need VMware vCenter Server (along with HA/DRS/vMotion) integrated with a virtual lab automation solution in my pre-production (e.g., dev/test) labs?
The short answer we believe is: No.
vCenter Server when coupled with VMware VI3 Standard (for HA only) or Enterprise (for HA, DRS and vMotion) introduces advanced management capabilities per host – which also means your TCO just went up against a competing, best in class and award winning offering from VMLogix. In this economic environment most customers we speak to are primarily very interested in cost savings and lowest TCO, best of breed solutions. Here is how the base virtualization infrastructure costs compare for a lab environment with 10 virtual hosts:
| Component | VMware Lab Manager with HA, DRS and vMotion support | VMware Lab Manager with HA support only | VMLogix LabManager |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of managed virtual hosts in the lab | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Bare Hypervisor Requirement (2 proc managed host) | 10 * $6,958 =
$69,580 | 10 * $3,624 = $36,240 Needs VI3 Standard, incl. 1 year Gold support | 10 * $1,540 =
$15,400 |
| vCenter Server (previously Virtual Center) – site wide license | $6,044 | $6,044 | No vCenter Server required |
| Cost of the Base Virtualization Infrastructure | = $75,624 | = $42,284 | = $15,400 |
| Almost 5X as expensive as a VMLogix VLA solution | More than 2X as expensive as a VMLogix VLA solution | Lowest cost, best of breed VLA solutio |
For completeness sake, let us look at each of the vCenter Server integrated with HA/DRS/vMotion capabilities in this context:
- HA: High Availability provides the “automatic restart” of VMs in a failover scenario. Since active running memory maps/stack configurations etc. of the VMs are not preserved, how beneficial is HA really in a test/lab environment? Would it not be possible equivalently for the test engineer/lab user to just restart the VM themselves? HA with its automated capabilities is really more useful in the production virtualized data center deployment, and is being thrust upon the pre-production lab environment.
- DRS: VMLogix LabManager has built in algorithms for intelligent VM placement on hosts. In addition, users can target VMs to a specific host or a group of hosts (pulled together in a pool). In essence, the capability to schedule/balance load across virtual hosts is built into LabManager. From that standpoint, the capabilities of DRS appear moot (or at least questionable for the cost of VI3 Enterprise for the managed host).
- vMotion: If you are trying to make a case for vMotion for resource balancing OR to free up resources (to make way for maintenance) – note that vMotion and DRS above are available only with VMware VI3 Enterprise coupled with vCenter Server (Virtual Center). This makes the cost significantly higher – for a lab with 10 hosts, the base infrastructure would cost 5X times the amount it would for a VMLogix solution. If you are attempting to use the vMotion capability during maintenance, you could consider using VMLogix LabManager to target VM deployments to specific hosts (thus freeing the other hosts for maintenance automatically).
In summary, VMLogix LabManager does not require VMware vCenter Server when managing VMware virtual hosts. Furthermore, VMLogix LabManager does not require VMware VI 3 Standard or Enterprise on every host either and works with basic VMware VI 3 Foundation. These two facts put together immediately reduces the TCO of the VMLogix virtual lab automation solution. And the additional management capabilities offered at the significant premium have debatable benefits in a pre-production lab environment.
7. We already use our favourite hyper-visor (e.g., VMware ESX) along with its natural management application (e.g., VMware VirtualCenter) in our production environment. Why do we need VMLogix LabManager?
The nature of managing virtual machines and IT infrastructure is significantly different in the pre-production and production scenarios. VMLogix LabManager is a management application that addresses the IT lab infrastructure challenges in the pre-production environment. For example, some of the pre-production environment challenges that VMLogix LabManager addresses include the support for a dynamic and broad set of users accessing the lab, the need to collaborate between teams (development, QA, support etc.), frequent changes in the test configurations, managing transient VMs, the need for automation support in the test bed setup process and so on. In addition to these, you need VMLogix LabManager to easily replicate production network configurations to run application tests and to run multiple isolated instances of the setup without any manual intervention (i.e., worrying about IP address or MAC conflicts etc.)If you have a test lab associated with your software/application development process, you need VMLogix LabManager to keep your lab costs under control, improve the quality of software built and accelerate the time to build software.
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8. We are already using VMware ESX in our test pre-production lab. Why do we need a management application along with it?
You need a lab management application to centrally manage your virtual machine growth and control sprawl. Using VMLogix LabManager the IT admin can enable users to self-serve and use lab infrastructure resources as necessary. In addition, VMLogix LabManager allows users and teams to collaborate (share resources with permissions) and work with a central repository of multi-tier test configurations. To support user operations around multi-tier configurations, VMLogix LabManager provides a rich set of functionality like automation (to help provision synchronized software stack setup), networking (unlimited public, private networks with flexible mapping of NICs to VMnets), user management (configuring roles and personas to control user access to product UI functionality) and so on. As multiple transient VMs are used, VMLogix LabManager optimizes the storage used through delta disk technology, that is not available as part of the core hypervisor.Return to top
9. Who else is using VMLogix LabManager?
VMLogix LabManager is a product that is geared towards software engineering teams in enterprises, independent software vendors, small-mid size quality assurance/testing companies and software systems integrators. If you are interested in specific customer references and why they have chosen us in head-to-head evaluations, please drop us a note at sales@vmlogix.com and we would be glad to provide the information.Return to top
10. What are customers saying about VMLogix?
"We rely on VMLogix LabManager's virtual lab automation solutions to provide our global development, test and support teams with the tools they need to help us deliver world-class Web Experience Management and Delivery solutions to customers around the world. Every high-performing software engineering organization owes it to themselves to look at VMLogix - it's best-in-class"(David Graham, CIO, Vignette Corporation).Return to top
11. Tell me more about VMLogix as a company?
VMLogix was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Additional office locations include Austin, Texas, Toronto, Canada and Bangalore, India. VMLogix is venture-backed, privately held company funded by Bain Capital Ventures and Trilogy.Return to top
12. How do I get started?
You can request a free 30-day trial of the software, and we are confident that you will see the product value in a short duration.For sales queries, you can email us at: sales@vmlogix.com, or for general enquiries email us at: info@vmlogix.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
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Resources
How is VMLogix LabManager different and better than VMware Lab Manager Whitepaper: Five Best Practices for Improving Software Development and Testing LabManager ROI Calculator Product How-To Videos Value of Virtual Lab AutomationDownload Brochure Request free evaluation Access more resources Contact VMLogix with a Technical Question
Resources
How is VMLogix LabManager different and better than VMware Lab Manager Whitepaper: Five Best Practices for Improving Software Development and Testing LabManager ROI Calculator Product How-To Videos Value of Virtual Lab AutomationDownload Brochure Request free evaluation Access more resources Contact VMLogix with a Technical Question
