Surgient, the leading provider of self-service virtualization automation and lab management, today announced a Webcast, “Managing the Flipside of Virtualization with Automation.” Scheduled for Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 2 p.m. ET and featuring Surgient Chief Technology Officer Dave Malcolm, the Webcast will explore the many challenges IT organizations face and outline how a self-service virtualization automation platform can help drive additional operational and capital efficiencies across the enterprise.

Organizations that have adopted virtualization are reaping the initial benefits and ROI, including reduced hardware, operating and energy costs. However, other problems and challenges have emerged, such as an increasing number of provisioning requests, configuration management, resource utilization, costly virtual machine sprawl and difficulty managing and optimizing a broader virtual infrastructure.

Virtualization is a key component of the solution, but it is not the solution alone. To truly leverage the full value of virtualization, enterprises are looking for solutions that automate processes and the management of virtualized environments, such as virtual automation. Webcast attendees will learn:

• Best practices and approaches for optimizing a virtualization investment;
• How to leverage existing computing resources to provide self-service access to users across the enterprise; and
• The value of virtual automation with true policy-driven self-service.

What: “Managing the Flipside of Virtualization with Automation” Webcast 
      
When: Wednesday, February 18, 2009   2 p.m. Eastern Time / 1 p.m. Central Time / 11 a.m. Pacific Time 
       
Speaker: Dave Malcolm, chief technology officer, Surgient 
      
Register at: http://www.surgient.com/event-reg/20090218-virtualautomationwebinar.htm

About the Speaker

Malcolm is responsible for product management, software development and datacenter operations for Surgient’s products and hosted solutions. Prior to Surgient, he was the vice president of Product Group at Motive where he built the software development organization from its early beginnings and was responsible for product marketing and development of the entire Motive product line that grew from $2 million to more than $65 million in annual revenue during his tenure. Prior to Motive, Malcolm was the vice president and general manager of the Internet Business Unit at Tivoli Systems. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.