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Cradle To Grave, Baby

Virtual Center can support 200 hosts and 2,000 VMs. VMware's new Lifecycle Manager offers hope to automate and track those thousands of containers.
Virtualization Sprawl is a hassle. (Remember when unmanaged physical server sprawl was the big complaint?) Losing track of a running server instance shouldn't happen.

But it does. Not that any self-respecting ops manager would admit it.

In my opinion, any ESX shop running more than four hosts should be using Virtual Center. Any ESX shop with more than four hosts has probably been complaining about lack of automation in the management toolbox. Startups like Cirba, Embotics, Configuresoft, and Hyperic have sprung up to address different needs in VMware's product line.

Lifecycle Manager is VMware's answer to "implement a consistent and automated process for requesting, approving, deploying, updating, and retiring virtual machines."

From today's announcement, LCM shows "who owns a virtual machine, when it was requested, who approved it, where it is deployed, how long it has been in operation and when it is scheduled to be decommissioned."

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