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Administrators looking for better automation and management in their IT infrastructures are getting help from VMware Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
VMware, which was bought in December by storage company EMC Corp., last week rolled out GSX Server 3, its virtual machine technology targeted at departments and software development and test teams.
Officials with the Palo Alto, Calif., company said the update includes better performance and new management capabilities. Enhanced features include 3.6GB of memory per virtual machine, which enables users to support larger applications on the virtual servers, officials said.
The new version also supports networked teams via adapter support and SCSI backup devices, as well as the migration of virtual machine images to VMwares high-end ESX Server virtual machine technology for data centers.
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Scott Allen, a technology officer with investment company Oak Associates Ltd., said improvements include the addition of VMwares VirtualCenter, which offers a single management console, and Preboot Execution Environment-based provisioning, for easier installation of operating systems on the virtual machines.
The Akron, Ohio, company has been using ESX and GSX 2.5.1 since July 2003. Allen said the software has allowed him to run applications on the virtual machines he might have been unable to run before.
“Ive added to the total number of servers but cut down on the [number of physical] servers,” Allen said. “Before, I couldnt justify the cost of a server for running [a particular application], but I can justify the cost of the operating system for it.”
Separately, HP, also of Palo Alto, announced last month a new graphical modeling tool when it closed on its acquisition of Consera Software Inc. HPs OpenView Service Delivery Designer enables IT administrators to build models of services that are mapped to particular IT components.
The software, created by Consera, enables improved manageability within an IT environment by using a graphical interface to create new workflows or change existing ones.