VMware Delivers VMware VirtualCenter, Virtual Infrastructure Software for the Responsive Enterprise

VirtualCenter Provides a Central Point of Control for the Virtual Infrastructure While Leveraging Existing Hardware and Management Frameworks

PALO ALTO, Calif., November 10, 2003— VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems, today announced the availability of VMware VirtualCenter, a breakthrough new product first introduced in June, 2003 as VMware Control Center that enables management of a virtual infrastructure for the responsive enterprise.

Adopted by thousands of IT organizations worldwide, VMware servesoftware has saved hundreds of millions of dollars in hardware and operations costs when used as a server consolidation platform. VMware VirtualCenter now broadens the capabilities of VMware server software to offer the benefits of a virtual infrastructure.

"The Coleman Company's evaluation of VMware VirtualCenter has shown that it truly is possible to improve on an already powerful product such as VMware ESX Server 2," said Shawn Kaiser, network engineer for The Coleman Company, Inc. "With the ability to use VMotion technology to migrate virtual machines between hosts, centrally manage all of our virtual resources from a single location and gather systems availability and performance data within seconds, VirtualCenter provides the next level of operation and management for Coleman's virtual infrastructure."

VMware VirtualCenter exploits the benefits of a virtual infrastructure. With VirtualCenter, an administrator can manage thousands of Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Linux and NetWare servers from a single point of control. The VirtualCenter interface provides a powerful overview of all the virtual resources in a data center. From the VirtualCenter interface, administrators can perform:

Continuous Workload Consolidation.Monitor and optimize the utilization of data center resources to minimize unused capacity while maintaining application service levels by adjusting the resources dedicated to each software service.
Instant Provisioning. Reduce server-provisioning time from weeks to seconds, allowing administrators to respond immediately to requests for IT services.
Zero-Downtime Maintenance.Safeguard business continuity 24/7, with no service interruptions for hardware maintenance, deployment or migration. Use VMotion to move running operating systems and theiapplications off a physical server that needs maintenance and then transfer them back when maintenance is complete.

VMotion technology moves live, stateful virtual machines from one physical server to another while maintaining continuous service availability. VMotion is enabled by VMware's ability to keep the entire state of an x86 Server in software, which then allows that state to be duplicated and shifted from server to server. VMotion leverages a shared storage infrastructure—such as a storage area network—to allow the state of the virtual machine to be moved from one physical server to another without requiring its data to be moved.

"VMware VirtualCenter is one of the few tools in my solution stack that actually performs as the vendor promised," said Eric Kuzmack, IT architect for Gannett Co., Inc. "VirtualCenter combined with ESX Server and VMotion technology is the first set of products I've seen that allows me to easily manage workloads across multiple systems without requiring a major investment in staff or training."

Key features of VMware VirtualCenter include:

Template Library: VirtualCenter allows administrators to manage a versioned library of server templates that can be used by administrators to provision new services. Administrators can also easily create new templates from running systems. For example, a server that has been tuned for better performance with Oracle databases or contains a security configuration that took a long time to configure can instantly be turned into a best practice image.
Provisioning and Resource Allocation: Administrators can use the VirtualCenter interface to provision new Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Linux or NetWare servers to the pool of hardware resources. They can even choose specific amounts of processor cycles, real memory access, disk I/O and network bandwidth guaranteed to the server. When a server needs more or less resources, the resource allocations can be changed or the server can even be moved to another physical server without interrupting user service with VMotion technology.
Monitoring and Alerting: Threshold and event alerts can be configured for a large number of events within the virtual infrastructure, including server failures and over and underutilization events.
VMware SDK: VirtualCenter provides a rich API integration capability so that routine events can be automated or triggered by external systems.
Access Control Framework:VirtualCenter incorporates a robust access control framework so different levels of access can be granted to IT staff with different rights and privileges to manage the infrastructure.

"Customers have already saved hundreds of millions of dollars using VMware server software for server consolidation and disaster recovery," said Michael Mullany, vice president of marketing at VMware. "Now VirtualCenter and VMotion enable customers to implement a new level of efficiency, responsiveness and consistency in their infrastructure."

Pricing and Availability

VMware VirtualCenter includes the VirtualCenter Management Serveand VirtualCenter Management Packs. The VirtualCenter Management Server is $5,000. A VirtualCenter Management Pack is $300 per CPU. VMotion is an optional add-on and is $700 per CPU. VMware VirtualCenter and VMotion are available from VMware. VMware Sales can be reached by Email and 1-877-4VMWARE.

About VMware, Inc.

VMware, Inc. is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems. The world's largest companies use VMware solutions to simplify their IT, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands. VMware is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.vmware.com or call 650-475-5000.

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