VMware targets Windows admins with toolkit beta
VMware is seeking greater adoption of its virtualisation products within the Microsoft space by releasing its Infrastructure Toolkit (for Windows) 1.0 Beta.
Based on Microsoft's PowerShell command line interface, the new toolkit will allow administrators to automate repetitive tasks, such as system snapshots, server deployments from templates and general tool upgrades, said VMware in an interview with ZDNet.co.uk.
Coming less than a month after its VMworld Europe conference in Cannes, the virtual infrastructure (VI) toolkit will, according to VMware, speed up management tasks across virtual infrastructures and make management and automation of virtual machines more straightforward.
"The VI toolkit will provide Windows administrators with over 100 cmdlets to make managing virtual machines easier, as it can automate tasks, such as updates, across an estate of virtual machines. PowerShell tends to be popular with administrators who are handling Windows implementations, so this product will help them to manage their systems in the way they want. We have already developed a VI toolkit based on Perl, which is popular with the Linux community, so offering a toolkit based on PowerShell means that we can offer the same level of support to Windows administrators as well," said Martin Niemer, senior product marketing director for enterprise solutions at VMware.
Rumours suggest that the market for enterprise-level virtualisation in Europe is somewhat immature and Microsoft itself has recently stated that existing options for virtualisation are in many cases prohibitively expensive. To address these concerns, VMware said it wants to build a reference repository for best practices on its developer community feedback and forum pages. As the VI toolkit beta develops, the company is hoping the site will act as useable resource for administrators who need additional virtualisation skills.
The community pages feature technical white papers and compatibility guides alongside a dedicated developer centre section and a selection of blogs from VMware employees and independent technical users. Users can also download the beta product and get example scripts and links to help complete first-time virtualisation installations.