VMware announced two new bundles of its suite of management and automation products for the datacenter.

• The VMware IT Service Delivery Bundle includes all the products necessary to automate the entire lifecycle of IT services from initial request to final retirement: VMware Lifecycle Manager and either VMware Lab Manager or VMware Stage Manager. These products use virtualization to provide a way to manage the entire software lifecycle. In particular, they enable end user self-provisioning of virtual machines, give IT departments complete control of virtual machine environments and provide the application owners with application release management. The new bundle will enhance the productivity of and empower application developers, testers, and IT administrators by helping to: manage virtual machine sprawl; build and deploy new environments; and deploy new services with minimal risk through the constancy of the development, test, staging, and deployment environments and the ability to specify and automate the rules around these processes.
• The VMware Management and Automation Bundle provides a single package for addressing both IT Service Delivery and Business Continuity. It includes VMware Lifecycle Manager, VMware Lab Manager, VMware Stage Manager, plus the disaster recovery product VMware Site Recovery Manager, an improvement over traditional tools for disaster recovery configuration, testing, and management.

A recent IDC study found that 80% of those surveyed believe that virtualization improves their ability to manage and deliver IT services (IDC VM Infrastructure Multi-Client Study, 2007). VMware virtual machines encapsulate applications and operating systems in standardized, hardware-independent packages that can be easily changed, moved and manipulated. VMware’s new portfolio of management and automation products leverage virtual machines to automate the steps of the IT service delivery and business continuity processes, eliminating repetitive tasks and minimizing risk. This automation results in scalable, repeatable and efficient IT processes.

“VMware is unmatched in both our vision and our capabilities for automating the virtual datacenter,” said Raghu Raghuram, vice president of products and solutions at VMware. “With our broadening range of management and automation products and new cost-effective bundles, our customers are now able to automate datacenter processes in ways that just aren’t possible with physical infrastructure, resulting in a datacenter that is more efficient and agile.”

“The next step for virtualization clearly centers around automating IT processes,” said Stephen Elliot, research director at IDC. “It is no secret in the IT industry that the real cost of IT is the ongoing management, simply keeping the lights on. This is where IT is currently spending their time and effort. After having delivered significant cost savings through consolidation, the automation of both IT processes and technology tasks can help IT departments extricate themselves from the tactical, rote tasks and focus where they can have a real strategic impact.”

The IT Service Delivery Bundle includes:

• VMware Lifecycle Manager, which allows companies to implement a consistent and automated process for requesting, approving, deploying, updating, and retiring virtual machines, and gives customers the choice of either, VMware Lab Manager, which provides fast and simple self-service provisioning of multi-tier virtual machine-based environments or VMware Stage Manager, which streamlines and accelerates the application change, configuration and release management cycle.
• The Management and Automation Bundle includes the IT Service Delivery Bundle and VMware Site Recovery Manager, which provides integrated disaster recovery management and automation.

The products and bundles will be available through VMware’s network of distributors, resellers and OEMs starting May 19.