What is Virtual Lab Automation and why should I care?
My name is Srihari Palangala, and I work at VMLogix as a manager of product marketing. I have spent several years in the software technology industry under various capacities – software development/testing, IT consulting, business development and marketing.
I’m sure readers of this blog are passionate about software testing, verification, validation and the like. I do believe that software testing plays a critical role in ensuring that IT infrastructure operates 24 X 7 and with minimum/no activity disruption. IT is viewed as a core infrastructure today and any adverse impact is directly reflected in the business top and/or bottom lines. Unfortunately, software continues to be somewhat unreliable and this is probably what causes some IT folks to whine! (btw, I’m not endorsing the view in the referenced post). My point is — Solid and reliable IT performance is only possible with sound testing processes and practices.
However, the job of testing has become increasingly difficult over the years – with increasing software complexity, hardware and software platforms, third party applications and so on. The permutations and combinations to test are just mind boggling. This becomes even harder with shrinking IT budgets and globally distributed teams developing software today. I don’t need to belabor the point here, all of you I’m sure resonate with this – since these are your operational challenges on the job!
What is virtual lab automation? Server virtualization is a scorching technology in enterprises/ISVs and SMBs alike (especially with the advent of Microsoft Hyper-V a few weeks ago). There are several hypervisors available in the market, some even free. Hypervisors are a great start for the testing community wishing to quickly deploy pristine test machines. But, the use of only hypervisors inadvertently creates another problem – managing VM sprawl! VLA offers you and the test lab a lot more than a pure hypervisor deployment. VLA is a management system by which recurrent labor-intensive manual tasks necessary in test and development labs can be automated and by which test and development lab processes and infrastructure can be streamlined and centrally managed. VLA ensures rapid, highly repeatable, resource-optimized deployments of complex, multi-machine build, test, and pre-production environments across virtual machines. VLA works on top of server virtualization platforms from vendors like VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft and can integrate with existing software and hardware infrastructures in order to maximize existing enterprise investments.
The popular VLA solutions in the market are VMLogix LabManager, VMware Lab Manager and Surgient’s VQMS. Each of these solutions have integrations with powerful source control, build and test management tools as well. Among these, VMLogix LabManager is the only VLA solution that supports all leading hypervisors from vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft and VMware. In addition, VMLogix LabManager has powerful automation capabilities that help dramatically increase productivity of software engineering teams.
Okay. So, why should I care? In simple terms – if you want to ship better quality software in a shorter time frame and with reduced IT spend then you cannot afford to overlook a VLA deployment in your lab. If your software engineering team is not supported by a test lab champion, then you are likely missing out on a key productivity enhancing tool in VLA. And given the growing dependency and demands from a test lab manager a VLA solution is a must! A solution like VMLogix LabManager provides rich functionality and has several benefits.
If you would like to learn more and track the latest in the virtual lab automation space – do monitor our VMLogix blog and engage with us.
You can also request for a free 30 day evaluation of the VMLogix LabManager software. Alternatively, register on our virtual portal and gain access to a lot of online resources around this technology including product videos, screencasts, documents, forums etc.
We look forward to hearing from you!
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
[...] and Verify blog I wrote a guest post on Nandan Jha’s Validate and Verify blog - “What is Virtual Lab Automation and why should I care?“. If you are getting started in adopting virtualization in your software engineering/testing [...]
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:35 am
So aptly said Srihari.
As an industry we have made great progress in this area and I am fairly certain that we can’t ignore this any more. As software development starts to get more predictable (from being a creative work to a scientific work), the reliance on these tools and systems would greatly increase.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. I hope to keep hearing from you time to time on some of these issues.
August 4th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
[...] across virtual machines. You should consider reading this guest post of mine — “What is Virtual Lab Automation and Why should I care?” to get an introduction to the [...]
August 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am
[...] lab, then consider reading this. If you are new to virtual lab automation, then you might want to read this guest post to get some familiarity with VLA. VMLogix will provide you with the following management benefits - self-service IT (hands off [...]
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:05 am
[...] virtual lab automation and management. To begin with, the first is a poll on key functionality in a virtual lab automation solution — what is it that you care about most in a lab management solution? You can make a multiple [...]
September 4th, 2008 at 10:35 am
[...] Dennis’ context - Virtual lab automation solutions provide an additional benefit - you can let the field team get to the lab via a web [...]
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:30 am
[...] good chunk of people were aware of virtual lab automation and its benefits and most of our conversations were around how the VMLogix LabManager product was [...]
September 30th, 2008 at 5:04 am
[...] Virtual Lab Automation solutions If you are in the market looking for/educating yourself on virtual lab automation solutions, this post might be useful for you. I’ll spend some time writing about basic capability that [...]
April 8th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Once upon a time air travel was a great deal simpler than it is today. You called one of a few airlines that flew from your airport, the agent would tell you what flights were available for a given time, and you booked the one you wanted. Airports were always bustling places, especially during the holidays, but as long as you gave yourself adequate time, the process was usually the same. You would check your bags, go through the x-ray machine, get your boarding pass, and wait patiently at the appropriate gate. Once you got on the plane you ate the snack or meal that came with your flight and watched a movie.
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Tips and tricks for cheap air tickets