VMware unwraps virtualization management tools

VMware has revealed several new virtualization management products to be announced at VMworld, but is so far shying away from any big-ticket announcements.

While VMworld is often the forum for VMware to make major statements about its strategic direction, the announcements revealed under embargo last week mainly rehash previous announcements while adding a few extra details. One announcement centers on the VMware vCenter management product line and features seven products, all of which had been previously announced and five of which were already generally available.

The two newer products, set for release later this year and early next year, include CapacityIQ, which gives IT a historical view of capacity needs across virtualized resources to forecast capacity shortfalls and reclaim excess resources. CapacityIQ will be available in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The other unreleased product is ConfigControl, which automatically tracks the configuration of virtual machines and the relationship of VMs to underlying physical infrastructure, allowing IT to ensure compliance with business policies.

ConfigControl will be available in the first half of next year.

Separately, VMware is announcing a free Web-based tool to help small and midsize businesses automate the installation and configuration of ESXi, the free version of VMware’s hypervisor. The Web-based service is called VMware Go and is in beta starting Monday with general availability scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2009.

VMworld in San Francisco will be hosted by VMware from Monday to Thursday , so VMware could still make a statement to rival the April announcement of its “cloud operating system” or the acquisition three weeks ago of Java vendor SpringSource.

A VMware spokeswoman said more news will be on the way Monday, but declined to say what it might be.

VMware is centering its virtualization strategy on providing the infrastructure for cloud-based services with vSphere, the latest version of its hypervisor and virtualization management platform. VSphere has been downloaded more than 350,000 times in the first 12 weeks since it became available, according to VMware. Overall, VMware says it has more than 150,000 customers.

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VMworld could be the forum where VMware reveals more details about its plans for SpringSource, which will fit squarely into the company's cloud strategy. VMware has said it will combine its virtualization technology with SpringSource's Java tools to create cloud-based platforms for the building and hosting of Web applications.

Pund-IT analyst Charles King said he expects more details about SpringSource this week, and predicts that “some fairly major developers will climb on the SpringSource bandwagon.”