Surgient, a leader in Virtual Lab Management Applications for automating software demo, test and training labs, today announced the immediate availability of version 5.0 of Surgient Virtual Lab Management Applications.
Built on the next generation Virtualization Control Server(TM) (VCS) platform, Surgient Virtual Lab Management solutions create, manage and deliver "virtual labs" -- applications that orchestrate and optimize shared virtual infrastructure. Virtual labs enable development, QA/test, training, sales, marketing and support functions to rapidly provision and securely access complex software configurations, or sandboxed software environments, in a completely self-service manner.
Today's enterprise requires a virtual lab solution that supports critical business applications and the complex software and hardware environments required to sustain them. This latest release adds key new capabilities including support for mixed virtual infrastructure environments, image and policy-based resource management, dynamic pooling of virtual resources, scheduling and calendaring, universal remote access and customizable enterprise reporting tools. Surgient version 5.0 also adds enterprise-class scalability to deploy and manage labs consisting of thousands of virtual servers.
"The rapid adoption of virtualization in the enterprise has outpaced the planning for its use and lifecycle by IT professionals, increasing risk," said Bill Daniel, Surgient president and CEO. "Version 5.0 of Surgient Virtual Lab Management Applications eliminates this risk. Our customers are able to leverage their current investments in virtualization technologies, greatly accelerate their software delivery processes and simultaneously gain competitive advantage in the market."
Surgient Virtual Lab Management Applications leverage standard virtual infrastructure solutions from Microsoft® and VMware®. Version 5.0 enables organizations to eliminate the high costs and inflexibility of provisioning physical computing infrastructure used in key software delivery processes in both pre- and post-production environments. By enabling companies to fully optimize their software delivery lifecycle processes, Surgient v5.0 helps reduce operating costs, increase productivity and allows IT to better align with business priorities.
"IDC believes that there is a growing confluence across the virtualization and application lifecycle management (ALM) arenas," said Melinda Carol-Ballou, program director for application lifecycle management software at IDC Research. "As this happens, the process of building software and managing its development in conjunction with virtualization demands a higher level of sophistication. Technology that optimizes virtual lab deployment in both the pre- and post-production test environments simplifies the processes for testing multiple virtualization configurations and increasing test team productivity."
"Crossroads needed a powerful, yet flexible solution for testing the complete matrix of database configurations and clients against StrongBox(TM) DBProtector(TM), our new database security appliance," said Judith Dietz, senior development manager at Crossroads Systems. "Surgient Virtual QA/Test Lab Management System version 5.0 offers the promise of compatibility between our appliance and customer requirements, enabling us to integrate seamlessly into their environments and move them quickly to success."
Features & Capabilities
New features in the Surgient Virtual Lab Management Applications, version 5.0, include:
* Support for heterogeneous virtual lab environments. Lab configurations
often require support from multiple virtual infrastructure technologies
and can include virtual machine images of different types and versions.
With Surgient v5.0, the deployment requirements for each image in a lab
configuration become invisible to the enduser. The user simply deploys
and manages the virtual lab through the Surgient self-service portal,
allowing the system to orchestrate the details of capacity planning,
configuration and provisioning. This assures that legacy virtual machine
images can continue to be used in current test automation, demo or
training processes.
* Advanced management capabilities and tools. Version 5.0 of all Surgient
Virtual Lab Management Applications include an entirely revamped
management console with new capabilities for managing pooled servers and
how those systems are dynamically allocated. The new console also
provides enhanced reservation management, calendar and scheduling tools,
the ability to schedule maintenance windows for servers in the pool and
other improved policy management tools. In addition, a delegated
authority feature enables administrators to grant different users
various levels of privilege to resources and applications. These
capabilities reduce or eliminate altogether the manual work associated
with lab configuration, provisioning and management.
* Enhanced reporting tools and data. New reports in version 5.0 deliver
information on lab usage, server usage, historical user activity, future
reservations and predicted usage. Data collected is also available for
export to enterprise analysis and reporting tools.
* Enterprise virtual lab scalability. Enterprise organizations can require
hundreds or thousands of virtual servers to be deployed concurrently
across multiple pre- and post-production functions. Version 5.0 scales
to support active management of complex enterprise labs consisting of
thousands of virtual machines. A self-service console provides one-click
lab reservations, easy provisioning and automated configuration. With a
library-based management system, scaling of the system is as simple as
adding additional servers to the pool.
* SOAP XML Web services interfaces for advanced integration. Version 5.0
includes a Web services API for advanced integration of virtual lab
management capabilities with enterprise test management, learning
management, live virtual classroom and other systems. The XML API
enables complex application lifecycle processes to be automated across
multiple applications and to be executed within the virtual lab
environments.
About Surgient Virtual Lab Management Applications
Surgient develops and delivers a suite of Virtual Lab Management Applications keyed to critical phases of the enterprise application delivery lifecycle. Surgient Virtual Lab Management Applications include:
* Virtual QA/Test Lab Management System (VQMS). Enterprise organizations
can easily consolidate test and development infrastructure, enabling
QA/test teams to rapidly provision and securely access multi-server test
configurations on demand.
* Virtual Training Lab Management System (VTMS). Enables training
organizations to improve productivity and reach by automating the
deployment of hands-on lab environments to support classroom and online
software training.
* Virtual Demo Lab Management System (VDMS). Improves the productivity of
enterprise software sales organizations by centrally managing and
automating the deployment of software configurations to support
demonstrations, evaluations and proof-of-concepts. Enables enterprise
software marketing organizations to deliver complex software evaluations
on demand without costly CD kits or cumbersome downloads.
Availability and Pricing
Surgient Virtual Lab Management Applications, version 5.0, are available immediately. Workgroup pricing begins at $35,000. More information can also be found at http://www.surgient.com.
About Surgient
Surgient puts virtualization technology to work for the world's largest companies. One of the first companies to provide on-demand applications that automate the deployment, configuration and teardown of complex enterprise software environments or "virtual labs," Surgient's award-winning Virtual Lab Management solutions enable end users to rapidly provision needed computing resources for business-critical initiatives such as software QA/test, training, sales and marketing. With over 500,000 virtual labs applications delivered to date, Surgient enables companies such as Business Objects, CA, EMC, Mercury Interactive, Microsoft, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and Symantec to dramatically accelerate the software application delivery lifecycle, reduce operating costs, increase productivity and enable IT to better align with business priorities. Surgient partners with leading technology companies including EMC/VMware, Microsoft, Mercury Interactive, Saba/Centra, ViewCentral and WebEx Communications. Surgient is a private, venture-backed company based in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit http://www.surgient.com.