Virtual machines are hot, and their proliferation is spinning out of control. Why the virtual-machine rush? Easy: The "one operating system, one hardware host" rule is passé now that virtual-machine software lets companies stretch their hardware resources as far as their CPU capacity can take them.

But they all need managing. So Network World has identified five areas that need to be addressed to make virtual-machine management a workable venture in a large deployment.

In the article, they identify the following:

1. How are versions of virtual-machine snapshots of images tracked?

2. How are moves, adds and changes administered?

3. How are virtual-machine and application dependencies kept in check?

4. How are user and administrative roles managed across virtual machines?

5. What forensics is available to help determine why a virtual machine went down?

Check out the original article on Network World to find the answers, here.