VMware Tackles Capacity Management With New Tool

VMware is aiming to provide IT managers with a better insight of their available data centre resource after it launched a new capacity management tool for virtualised environments.

The new tool is called VMware vCenter CapacityIQ, and is part of the VMware vCenter product family. It has been designed to help IT better manage its computing resources, which in a virtualised environment is traditionally shared across many virtual machines.

Essentially, the tool aims to help IT to deliver the right capacity at the right time, and to make sure that any enabled capacity is being efficiently utilised. This allows the IT manager to reduce excess desktop or data centre waste, and means that he or she can make more informed planning and purchasing decisions.

“In virtualised environments, customers can optimise performance and boost their ROIs by properly allocating resources,” said Bogomil Balkansky, VP, product marketing, server business unit, for VMware. “VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is the first product that enables customers to fully analyse their virtualised environments, identify bottlenecks and wasted resources, and plan for current and future capacity needs so they have confidence that they can meet business demands.”

And the tool also allows the IT manager to analyse the impact of any changes, as it proactively models the impact of a planned change, such as an acquisition or new application. It also gives system administrators a valuable insight into future provisioning for growing virtualised environments, as it can forecast future needs based on consumption patterns.

With IT budgets constantly under pressure and review, tools like this can help to reduce costs, thanks to the greater visibility of resource utilisation. This effectively means that the IT manager can reclaim unused capacity and doesn’t have to purchase additional capacity. Indeed, CapacityIQ proactively analyses resource usage patterns and automatically generates a list of virtual machines that have been over-provisioned.

A free 60 day evaluation copy is available here. Pricing is between $1,204 (£725) and $1,630 (£982) depending on support contracts.