During VMworld Europe, which was held in Kopenhagen last week, VMware announced the upcoming release of 2 products which it acquired from Shavlik Technolgies in May this year.
The first product is VMware Go Pro, which VMware jointly developed with Shavlik. Go Pro is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering which can be used to manage on-premises vSphere Hypervisors and their VMs and physical machines from a single pane of glass and is targeted for SMBs. The product is available in two editions, the free to use Go version and in a paid-subscription version which is called Go Pro.
VMware Go provides the following functionality:
- IT Advisor, an assessment solution which provides recommendations, alerts and actions to be implemented in order to reduce costs
- Installation, configuration and management of vSphere hypervisors
- Creation of Virtual Machines
- Software Asset Inventory
- Hardware Asset Inventory
- Patch Scanning, including non-Microsoft patches
- Help Desk, providing trouble ticket management
The Go Pro version provides the following added functionality:
- Software License Management
- Hardware Asset Management
- Patch Deployment and Scheduling
- Help Desk End User Portal
- Help Desk Account Management
- SaaS Basic Support
VMware Go Pro will begin under limited availability on VMware.com in Q4 2011 starting at $12 per managed system/per year. VMware expects to broaden the availability of VMware Go Pro through its global network of channel partners over time.
The Second Product is vCenter Protect Essentials Plus, which was formerly known as Shavlik NetChk Protect. Which is a on-premise management solution which will offer agent or agentless management of physical and virtual machines, software update deployment, asset discovery, configuration, power management, antivirus and endpoint security.
The products will contain the following new features:
- New scripting capabilities
- Execution of Remote Desktop from the management console
- Support for multiple users in the console
- Power Status Scan, which will discover the power status of machines across the network.
Protect Essentials Plus will be provided in three editions, the Essentials, Plus and Government Edition.
The Essentials Edition will contain the following features:
- Asset Inventory
- Patch Management
- Offline VM Patching, Template VM Patching
- Agentless and agent-based
- Snapshot Backup Recovery
Besides that the Plus edition will contain:
- Antivirus, integrated with Sunbelt VIPRE Enterprise Antivirus and Antispyware
- Power Management, power off and wake-up using Wake-on LAN (WoL)
- Configuration Management
- IT Scripts, supporting Microsoft PowerShell providing automation tasks like configuration maintenance, support and network information.
The Government edition, will contain Configuration Management on top of the Essentials functionality and is Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) validated.
vCenter Protect Essentials Plus will be made available in Q4 2011, it will be available as a annual subscription at $57 per server/per year and $36 per workstation/per year.