VKernel Controls the Cloud with New vOPS Server Standard 6

New vOPS Server Standard 6 extends control into cloud deployments and virtual machine (VM) performance

Boston, Massachusetts (PRWEB) August 27, 2012

VKernel, a division of Quest Software and the award-winning provider of enterprise-class performance, configuration and capacity management products for virtualized data centers and cloud environments, announced today general availability of vOPS Server Standard 6.0. This release extends control into cloud environments and virtual machine (VM) performance with unified multi-data source VM issue diagnosis, change impact modeling and VMware vCloud Director integration. vOPS Server Standard 6.0 is available for download and will be showcased this week at VMworld 2012, August 26-28, in San Francisco at VKernel booth #607.

Virtualized Environments and Cloud Deployments Produce a Series of “Fire-Fights”
Unlike physical servers, where applications are mapped to unique hardware such as physical network connections, virtual infrastructures can't be seen or touched by an administrator. This lack of physical attachment provides tremendous benefit but also adds dramatic complexity from:
    Resource contention issues
    Extreme mobility of virtual machines and connected storage
    Cloud deployment models that increase change volume with additional automation

The end result is a highly complex and dynamic system of interlocking parts, many of which cannot be assessed without processing data through advanced analytics. Because change is constantly occurring within virtualized infrastructures, issues often develop unexpectedly. Worse, a problem in one object can affect many others as resources are shared. System administrators must typically engage in “fire-fighting” multiple issues before determining the root cause of a problem. The only way to ensure performance and fiscally sound business operations, and ultimately provide sanity to the system administrator, is to deliver a solution that can control the virtual environment.

vOPS provides control for cloud deployments and VM performance through analytics, advice and automation. The 6.0 release of vOPS Server Standard enhances these capabilities with:
    Unified multi-data source VM issue diagnosis
    Change impact modeling
    vCloud Director integration

Unified Multi-Data Source VM Issues Diagnosis Spots and Resolves Performance Problems
VM performance issues can occur from a variety of causes, such as increased application utilization or automated system changes. This information is housed in multiple datasets, such as hypervisor alarms, performance metrics, configuration settings and change events, and requires a significant amount of analysis and data correlation to uniquely identify issue root cause.

vOPS Server Standard 6.0 introduces new unified multi-data source VM issue diagnosis functionality that analyzes:
    Network, CPU, memory and storage performance
    VM configuration changes and other events
    Related virtual objects that share resources such as other VMs, datastores and hosts

The end result is a unified screen that lists issues identified from analysis of multiple data sources, spanning from hypervisor alarms and resource utilization to configuration management. This functionality then provides advice on how to resolve each issue and ensures that the troubleshooting workflow can be completed with automated remediation execution.

Change Impact Modeling for Performance and Capacity
Because VMs share IT resources, any change can adversely impact performance issues in other areas of the virtual environment. Assessing changes manually is difficult due to the sheer volume of data that must be processed. Yet, environment changes are a leading cause of unexpected VM performance issues that cause system administrators to go into “fire-fighting” mode.

To remove this source of “fire-fighting,” vOPS Server Standard 6.0 introduces change impact modeling. Changes can be modeled in a “dress rehearsal” before executing them. vOPS' analytics determine if issues will occur as a result of a change, and changes can then be automatically implemented.

New vCloud Integration Expands Control into the Cloud
vOPS Server Standard 6.0 introduces integration into VMware vCloud Director, extending virtual environment control to cloud deployments. This integration enables analysis, reporting and management of data objects specific to vCloud Director.

Additional Functionality
Additional enhancements in vOPS Server Standard 6.0 include:
    New Automation Capabilities – VMs can be powered on and off and moved from host to host.
    Global Virtual Object Search – A “Google-like” search field finds objects across the environment.
    Extended Change Analysis – Changes to hosts, clusters, and resource pools are now tracked. Analytics have been introduced to assess the risk level of environment changes.

“Today's virtualized environments can be difficult to manage and as more data centers move to cloud delivery models, chances are they will continue to become even more complex,” says Bernd Harzog, The Virtualization Practice. “System administrators need to be able to quickly resolve issues, and when possible, fully automate common management tasks to continue to effectively manage their environments as they scale and add complexity.”

“We're looking forward to the added control that this release of vOPS Server Standard will give us over our virtual environment,” says Jason Brewer, IT Infrastructure Manager, PEER 1. “In particular, the ability to model new VM creation, and then automatically deploy these VMs into the environments will help us save significant time on a day-to-day basis.”

“We're pleased to release functionality that will provide our customers with control over their virtual environments and cloud deployments,” says Alex Rosemblat, Product Marketing Manager, VKernel. “By cutting out the “fire-fighting” involved in typical data center processes, systems administrators using the latest vOPS release will be able to dedicate more time to other tasks like working with end users and architecting their environment.”

General Availability
vOPS Server Standard 6.0 is available now for a 30-day trial from http://www.vkernel.com and http://www.quest.com. The Japanese version of vOPS 6.0 will be available in Q1 2013. Pricing starts at $549 per socket per application.

About Us
VKernel, a division of Quest Software QSFT, is the number one provider of virtualization management products for virtualized data centers and cloud environments. The company's powerful, easy-to-use and affordable products simplify the complex and critical tasks of planning, monitoring and predicting capacity utilization and bottlenecks. Used by over 50,000 system administrators, the products have proven their ability to maximize capacity utilization, reduce virtualization costs and improve application performance.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/8/prweb9833020.htm