Veeam brings VMware under Microsoft SCVMM control

Veeam 'closes the loop' on VMware monitoring with Microsoft Systems Centre

Virtual management specialist Veeam has announced a tool that adds automated problem resolution to its nworks software, which already links VMware environments into Microsoft's System Center management console.

The Veeam nworks Pro Pack, due in the second quarter of 2010, provides enterprises using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with automated problem resolution for VMware environments, according to the firm.

It will ship with version 5.5 of the Veeam nworks Management Pack for VMware, a release candidate of which is available for download now.

Shown at the Microsoft Management Summit 2010 in Las Vegas, the nworks Pro Pack "closes the loop" on VMware monitoring using the management infrastructure that organisations already have in place, according to Veeam.

While nworks already monitors VMware virtual machines and provides this information to Microsoft's Systems Center Operations Manager, the new Pro Pack extends this to Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager, which can then take any necessary corrective action.

"What we're doing is linking these two together from a VMware perspective," said Veeam senior director for product strategy Doug Hazelman.

"Say one virtual machine is increasingly using more and more memory, we can then initiate a move to another host server to relieve the memory pressure."

The 'Pro' in Pro Pack stands not for 'professional', but for Performance and Resource Optimisation, a feature of System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Hazelman said that Microsoft had asked Veeam to provide this feature, as it enables customers to manage VMware and Hyper-V virtual machines in the same way and from the same console.

Because the nworks Pro Pack will be included with version 5.5 of the Management Pack for VMware, existing customers will get it with their next maintenance upgrade, according to Veeam.