Enterasys DCM Software Supports VM Mobility

Enterasys Networks, the network infrastructure and security arm of Siemens Enterprise Communications, today announced Enterasys Data Center Manager (DCM), a management tool that provides the glue between switches and physical or virtual servers to make sure they stay in synch.

The new DCM software manages the movement of virtual machines (VMs) in the data center fabric by peering into networks, servers, storage and applications, across both physical and virtual environments. The Enterasys DCM works with the company’s networking equipment, including its S-Series Ethernet switches, to track and monitor VMs as they move about the data center.

The DCM software offers a centralized view of virtual server and network environments and is vendor agnostic, as it works with hypervisors from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware.

“Data Center Manager provides visibility across both sides – the network and physical or virtual servers – to identify VMs, provide historical data and provide consistent application services as VMs move from one physical server to another,” said Ray Suarez, director of product management, Enterasys. “Changes on the server side are automatically propagated to the physical to make sure that both sides are in synch.”

Suarez said DCM allows IT administrators to consolidate “islands” of resources that exist in the data center by providing integrated tracking and monitoring of VMs and applications and a view of virtual server and network environments.

The software serves up historical reporting on VM movement to ensure the proper network resources are allocated when a VM is provisioned through the application of individual policies to data objects in the switching fabric.

Data Center Manager is available as a software update for existing customers and will ship with new Enterasys switches. The software currently scales to support as many as 50,000 VMs.

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