Software offers policy-driven access to virtual resources.
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Press Release Summary:
Surgient® Virtual Automation Platform(TM) v6.0 lets IT operations deliver self-service computing resources to users while maintaining administrative control. With physical provisioning and MS Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V support, solution optimizes IT's ability to support business initiatives, manage virtual resources, and eliminate physical server/VM sprawl. Post-deployment action, Microsoft Active Directory support, and IBM Rational BuildForge integration features are also included.
Original Press Release:
Surgient's New Virtual Automation Platform Relieves IT Burden
Surgient 6.0 Features Support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Physical Provisioning, Providing "Policy-Driven Self-Service(TM)" Access to Virtualized Resources
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 3 -- Surgient, the visionary of self-service virtualization automation and lab management, today announced Surgient(R) Virtual Automation Platform(TM) 6.0, a powerful solution enabling IT operations to deliver self-service computing resources to users while maintaining full administrative control. With physical provisioning and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V support, the Surgient Virtual Automation Platform optimizes IT's ability to support critical business initiatives, effectively manage diverse virtual resources and eliminate physical server and virtual machine (VM) sprawl.
"The proliferation of virtualization technology has placed an often unrealistic burden on IT departments to deliver increasingly complex computing environments to a larger number of users," said Donna Scott, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Self-service portals, giving users the power to deliver pre-established, standardized environments for themselves, can alleviate IT of this burden and free up IT time and personnel for more critical tasks."
The Surgient Virtual Automation Platform 6.0 reduces the burden on corporate IT departments by letting individual business units and users manage the reservation, configuration and deployment of virtual infrastructures needed to complete both simple and complex tasks. Surgient's solution is used by application development teams to configure virtual labs for application testing, by sales teams to prepare software demonstrations, and by HR and training teams to aid in internal and external software training.
Surgient 6.0 now features a powerful new interface, post-deployment action, Microsoft Active Directory support and IBM Rational BuildForge integration, providing users with the industry's most robust self-service virtualization automation and lab management platform for delivering customized computing environments on-demand.
"With an increasing demand for infrastructure used for testing, training, and sales demonstrations, we needed a more cost effective, less time consuming process to provide the infrastructure needed by all of our business constituents," said Leif Peterson, CIO at QAD. "The Surgient Platform with the QA/Test Solution, Training Solution and Demo Solution enables us to maximize infrastructure utilization while simplifying and finding economies of scale across the organization."
"Surgient provides its customers with a unique policy-driven self-service approach that enables users to reserve, provision and access computing environments on their own schedules," said Tim Lucas, president and CEO, Surgient. "Our successful experience with large scale deployments continues to validate the value of Surgient to IT. Surgient builds upon this rich heritage of self-service and enterprise scalability by productizing key features requested by our existing Fortune 2000 user base. With support for Microsoft's Hyper-V platform, we are providing a broader, heterogeneous framework for enterprises to benefit from the cost-savings and management advantages that virtualization provides."
"Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is already delivering real business benefits to customers, and one of the reasons is that third-party solutions providers such as Surgient are providing solutions for the platform," said David Greschler, director of integrated virtualization strategy, Microsoft Corp. "Surgient and Microsoft have a long history of collaborating on the best ways that virtualization technology can provide strategic benefits to IT across test and development scenarios, as well as broader initiatives."
Surgient will demonstrate its new offering at two upcoming industry events. The company is a silver sponsor of the Microsoft Get Virtual Now launch event on September 8 in Bellevue, Wash. In addition, Surgient is a silver sponsor of VMworld, held Sept. 15-18 in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the company will be exhibiting in booth #740. At both venues, Surgient will be showcasing Surgient 6.0 features and can discuss real-world installations of the company's solutions.
Features and Benefits
The Surgient Virtual Automation Platform 6.0 provides users with a number of new features, designed to enhance usability, management and enterprise integration.
-- Support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V -- Surgient 6.0 adds support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, further extending support for heterogeneous data centers, enabling administrators and users to manage business services that include a combination of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V- and VMware-based virtual machines, simultaneously.
-- Physical Provisioning Support -- With Symantec's Altiris Deployment Solution integration, Surgient 6.0 provides "bare metal" provisioning support for the automated deployment of blended physical and virtual computing environments enabling use cases that require non-virtualized workloads.
-- New User Interface -- With improved navigation, built-in search functions and a shared portal, the new user interface is easier to use and customize to meet any organization's business needs.
-- Post-deployment Actions -- Unique to Surgient 6.0, administrators and users can define and manage post-deployment automation actions enabling the real-time execution of scripts, patch installation, or loading of test data on virtual or physical machines as part of the deployment process. They no longer need to rely solely on configurations saved in the Surgient library, thus saving time and increasing usage scenarios.
-- Active Directory Support -- Surgient 6.0 provides the automatic management of Microsoft Active Directory machine identities, enabling user authentication and virtual machines to register with Active Directory services, helping eliminate virtual machine sprawl.
-- IBM Rational BuildForge Integration -- Users can now request resources from within IBM Rational BuildForge, helping manage the provisioning and reclamation of infrastructure as needed. With the integration, joint Surgient-BuildForge customers can more rapidly deploy resources in support of the application lifecycle process.
Pricing and Availability
Providing customers with the highest level of flexibility, Surgient Virtual Automation Platform 6.0 is available as either a licensed, onsite installation, where companies fully control the implementation and operation of the system, or as a hosted solution, enabling companies to get started immediately. General availability begins on September 30, 2008, and license pricing starts at $25,000.
About Surgient
Surgient is the visionary and market leader of self-service virtualization automation and lab management. The Surgient Virtual Automation Platform(TM) is a powerful, flexible and mature solution that enables enterprise IT organizations to effectively manage diverse virtual resources and eliminate physical server and VM sprawl, while delivering self-service computing resources to users. With policy-driven automation and a robust, guaranteed reservation system, users have on-demand access to their resources, and IT is freed up from manual administrative tasks to work on mission-critical projects. Using Surgient Virtual Automation Platform, world-class companies including Merck, Raymond James, HP, Halliburton, EMC, CA, Iron Mountain, IBM, GE, SAP, Microsoft, Intuit and others are accelerating their growth and profitability by automating virtual infrastructure in support of their business initiatives. Surgient is a private, venture-backed company based in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit www.surgient.com.
Surgient is a registered trademark of Surgient, Inc in the United States and foreign countries. Surgient Virtual Automation Platform and Policy-Driven Self-Service are trademarks of Surgient, Inc. All other products and company names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners.
