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.

If managing virtualization requires completely new processes, virtualization's opportunities are a very long way off. Embotics believes controlling virtual infrastructure can be incremental. You already manage release, configuration, changes, incidents, problems, etc. All of these processes are still crucial.

Integrated Control is all about extending what you already have. As a first step, integrate Embotics VM Identity as a virtual asset tag into existing management systems. To further improve your control over your virtual infrastructure, extend existing processes by integrating the full capabilities of V-Commander: visibility, tracking, real-time monitoring, and automatic policy enforcement. 

Virtualization has evolved from a useful tool for IT operations administrators to one of the most important strategic technologies for the datacenter. It’s clear however, that virtualization brings challenges along with its advantages. IT managers and administrators have consistently identified virtual sprawl as one of the most significant concerns with moving forward with virtualization.