The challenge with virtual infrastructure is that it introduces new lifecycle states and enables new actions; for example, VMs can be turned off and moved. These characteristics upset the design of existing management systems that assumed physical servers stayed where they were racked, were always visible to operations and took days to spin up. This is a particular challenge for IT managers responsible for compliance, where the systems put in place do acknowledge virtualization.

One approach adressing the mismatch between management capability and virtual infrastructure flexibility is to enforce physical boundaries to replicate the characteristics of physical infrastructure. However, following this approach considerably limits virtualization's potential.

Embotics is offering a different approach.

Virtual Containment Zones

With V-Commander, IT managers and adminstrators have an alternative via Embotics VM Zoning. 

Embotics VM Zoning is a way to define virtual machine containment zones. These zones can be used to separate applications or to ensure compliance to operational or security policies is maintained. For example, the administrator may define a production zone with a special high availability zone within it. Overlaying these zones might be high, medium or low security zones. Zones may be any virtual asset, including VirtualCenters, data centers, clusters, hosts, and resource pools.

Once these zones are configured, V-Commander can automatically enforce these zones and provide summary reporting on activities initiated to maintain zone policies.