Quest Software Offers Cloud Automation Platform 7.5

Cloud automation services provider Quest Software announced the release of its Cloud Automation Platform 7.5, the company's cloud automation and management technology. The platform helps small to medium-size businesses manage and deliver IT services across the enterprise. When combined with the overall Quest virtualization management portfolio, the Quest Cloud Automation Platform offers a comprehensive solution for deploying and automating infrastructure as a service to private clouds, the company claimed.

The Cloud Automation Platform assumes the presence of virtual infrastructure from either VMware or Microsoft, and allows combinations of both in a single private cloud. In addition, the Cloud Automation Platform integrates with physical provisioning and automation solutions from technology providers such as Hewlett-Packard and Symantec. Finally, the platform provides a self-service portal backed by automated service delivery and recovery, as well as user-centric services that can be scaled.

Features include the Cloud Capacity Management Dashboard, which provides an interactive graphical view of pooled infrastructure that enables cloud administrators to manage cloud capacity and resource allocation, and an updated graphical interface that enables administrators to manage migration recommendations from performance management tools (i.e., VMware vMotion, DRS, DPM) while maintaining the integrity of a self-service cloud.

"In addition to these key features, the Quest Cloud Automation Platform also automates the delivery of complex IT services and the reclamation of unused infrastructures," said Steve Stover, senior director of product management for Quest Virtualization Management. "The technology also dynamically manages resources, and provisions shared infrastructure while guaranteeing required capacity. And by providing a secure, multitenanted shared infrastructure, the platform also supports data separation and privacy."

Additional features include a redesigned reporting solution to support multiple chargeback methodologies and provide comprehensive data for inclusion in third-party business intelligence tools, and a persistent and debug deployment mode, designed to enable long-running deployments and ease the development of new IT services.

"With the Quest Cloud Automation Platform, we were able to quickly deploy and efficiently manage our hybrid cloud for software development, quality assurance, support, training and demonstrations," said Bill Keese, senior vice president of research and development at QAD. "At the same time, we have dramatically reduced capital and operating expenses in our data center while improving our business agility. These capabilities are possible because we now have a robust infrastructure cloud that can be shared across the entire company, our customers and partners."

Mary Johnston Turner, research director for systems management software at IDC, said more and more enterprise IT decision-makers rank developing and implementing private cloud strategies as one of their top priorities. "They are looking for policy-based automation and self-service capabilities to increase operational efficiency and to help tame the data center complexity created by rapid increases in production use of virtualization," she said. "With this new release, Quest Software is extending its portfolio to specifically address these important requirements."