Virtual Control with VMware vCenter

The power of server virtualisation is now well understood. Phoenix Software has helped hundreds of you to adopt an efficient and cost effective virtualised infrastructure based on VMware. Many of you who have been using VMware for some time to run stable, robust production infrastructures are now looking to extend the management and monitoring functionality of the vSphere platform.

VMware management solutions are provided by the vCenter Server product range - a universal hub for managing the VMware vSphere platform. The vSphere platform grows to provide the right level of capability to support any management challenge for organisations of any size, structure or level of maturity. From development and test labs to mission-critical applications, VMware vCenter enables the broadest visibility and deepest management of VMware vSphere.

vCENTER PRODUCT FAMILY

Current VMware vCenter solutions include:

VMware vCenter Server

Centralised control and visibility at every level of virtual infrastructure

The vast majority of VMware users already employ vCenter Server to manage their virtual infrastructure. VMware vCenter Server is the simplest, most efficient way to manage VMware vSphere - regardless of the number of virtual machines you have within your environment. vCenter Server provides unified management of all hosts and virtual machines in your data centre from a single console. Administrators gain deep insight into the status and configuration of clusters, hosts, virtual machines, storage, the guest OS and other critical components of a virtual infrastructure - all from one place.

VMware vCenter Server also gives administrators control over key capabilities such as VMware VMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler, High Availability, Fault Tolerance. vCenter Standard Edition provides the additional benefits of Orchestrator - a powerful orchestration engine that gives administrators the ability to create best practice workflows - and Linked Mode that enables a common inventory view across multiple VMware environments.

vCenter Heartbeat

Protect your management infrastructure

vCenter Heartbeat minimises the risk of downtime for VMware vCenter Server and ensures critical components such as vMotion and Distributed Resource Scheduler are always available. Through continuous monitoring, vCenter Server Heartbeat delivers high availability and disaster recovery for VMware vCenter Server and all of its components across the LAN or WAN (including the database, licensing server and plug-ins like vCenter Update Manager). VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat protects and recovers the VMware vCenter Server database instance, even if it's installed on a separate server.

VMware vCenter AppSpeed

Ensure performance levels for virtualised applications

AppSpeed allows you to analyse the performance of applications in your virtual environment and find ways to improve it. AppSpeed measures the latency experienced by the application end users and correlates it to the different tiers of the underlying physical and virtual infrastructure. This enables you to map each tier of the infrastructure, identify application performance bottlenecks and enable root cause analysis. Out-of-the-box views and dashboards identify the worst performing applications, applications with declining performance and applications experiencing high network error rates.

Unlike other performance management tools on the market, AppSpeed does not require agents, code insertion into applications or the creation of dummy transactions. AppSpeed is able to monitor application latency non-intrusively by inspecting packets flowing over virtual switches.

VMware vCenter Chargeback

Accurately measure and analyse costs of virtual machines

Make better resource utilisation and allocation decisions by ensuring accurate measurement of the true costs of virtualised workloads. Identify opportunities to reduce deployment of low-priority or under-utilised workloads that don't justify their costs. Help your organisation make informed decisions about service levels with better visibility of their associated costs.

vCenter Chargeback allows you to understand the cost of deploying and maintaining virtual machines and accurately account for resource ownership across the organisation. vCenter Chargeback can automatically assign costs for server, storage and network resource usage and distribute reports on a periodic basis to business owners. You can also track costs for power, cooling, real estate, software licences, and maintenance associated with virtual infrastructure deployments. vCenter Chargeback can help you eliminate the perception that virtual machines are 'free'.

VMware vCenter CapacityIQ

Perform 'what-if' impact analysis to model effect of capacity changes

CapacityIQ allows you to model various scenarios to understand and quantify the true business impact of modifying your virtual environment. With the right capacity intelligence, you can make informed provisioning and planning decisions for VMware vSphere. CapacityIQ continuously profiles, analyses and tracks your capacity needs at multiple levels and based on historical capacity consumption patterns, CapacityIQ can trend and forecast your current and future capacity needs.

VMware vCenter Lab Manager

Apply the benefits of virtualisation for development/test environments

vCenter Lab Manager is ideal if you want to provide self-service provisioning and management of virtual machines to internal teams, such as application developers and system engineers. The self-service portal provides on-demand access to a library of virtual machine configurations for end users therefore eliminating time-consuming provisioning tasks for IT. Users can quickly create their own virtual machines, subject to restricted quotas and access rights, to support their system development and testing activities.

Lab Manager is primarily aimed at developers and engineers, but with a bit of creative licence, Phoenix Software has also implemented this solution for schools and colleges to rapidly provision virtual machines in classroom environments.

VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager

Standardise virtual machine deployments across the organisation

Lifecycle Manager helps you to employ a consistent and scalable mechanism to route and approve all requests for virtual machines in compliance with IT policies. Rather than dealing with one-off requests via the phone or email, Lifecycle Manager provides an easy-to-use portal for users to request provision of virtual machines based on technical criteria and infrastructure mappings predefined by IT.

Lifecycle Manager offers powerful reporting capabilities, so you know exactly when a request was made, approved or denied, and when virtual machines are scheduled to be decommissioned. Lifecycle Manager has important considerations for Software Asset Management and the correct tracking of installed software licences and fits well with the best practice for virtual environments that
can be provided by Phoenix Software's SAM team.

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager

Build, manage and execute reliable disaster recovery plans

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager is a powerful Disaster Recovery (DR) tool that eliminates complex manual recovery steps and removes the risk and worry from DR. Site Recovery Manager automates recovery of virtual environments in the event of a disaster and ensures quick, reliable recovery. By automating recovery, Site Recovery Manager eliminates error-prone manual steps in the recovery process and ensures that procedures are consistently executed.

Site Recovery Manager also makes it easy to execute non-disruptive tests of recovery plans within an isolated testing environment so that you can ensure that they are up to date and will execute successfully. Phoenix Software has implemented a number of DR solutions incorporating VMware Site Recovery Manager and has published a number of case studies that describe the benefits of this technology including Benfield Motor Group and Leeds Bradford International Airport.

LEADING THE WAY

VMware virtualisation transforms the management of your IT infrastructure. Servers become dynamic software fi les that can be provisioned, managed, secured and protected with greater speed and efficiency using an on-demand pool of infrastructure resources. Applications can be delivered seamlessly with the highest level of availability and service levels, without the cost and complexity of traditional IT solutions.

VMware pioneered x86 virtualisation over a decade ago and leads the way with innovations that simplify how you manage your IT infrastructure and the applications that depend upon it. Virtualisation management is built into the VMware virtualisation platform, providing an elastic, self-healing, self-managing computer utility.

PHOENIX & VMWARE

Phoenix Software is regarded as one of the UK's leading VMware partners and is a VMware Premier VIP - the highest level of VMware partner accreditation. We are a VMware Authorised Consulting (VAC) Partner in recognition of our ability to deliver a comprehensive set of VMware services and solutions - our VAC status guarantees that the software advice and professional services we provide are fully endorsed and supported by VMware. We employ a number of highly experienced VMware Certified Professionals (VCP) qualified to deploy VMware solutions based on official Virtual Infrastructure Methodology with immediate access to VMware technical personnel and resources.

Phoenix Software also holds strategic partnerships with a number of VMware ISVs and technology partners, including HP, Dell and NetApp, which enable us to deliver total virtualisation solutions.

FIND OUT MORE

For further information and pricing, please contact your Phoenix Account Manager on 0845 265 1265 or email info@phoenixs.co.uk