Using Lab Manager
Discover how VMware Lab Manager can transform your IT infrastructure and operations. Use VMware Lab Manager whenever and wherever users need to access server configurations on an intermittent basis:
Application Development and Testing
VMware Lab Manager is an ideal lab automation solution for providing IT infrastructure to software development, test and QA teams. The software provides an easy-to-use self-service portal that enables users to deploy system configurations on demand in a matter of seconds, with virtual machine templates to accelerate the process while enforcingconsistency. Users can also capture system configurations “in state” in the library and share them with other users in local or remote locations in order to troubleshoot and resolve defects before applications are rolled out in production. IT administrators remain in control of the lab by setting up access control and storage quotas as well as lease times for shared server and storage resources.
Learn more about Virtual Lab Automation
"As the global leader in email and data encryption software, PGP supports a diverse range of cross-platform email, file and network systems. VMware Lab Manager, in concert with our automated test tools, has dramatically improved the efficiency of our development processes resulting in faster time to market."
— Will Price, Vice President, PGP
Support Organizations
Replicating customer environments manually to investigate support incidents is a time-consuming process that can impact responsiveness and customer satisfaction. Support engineers must also have access to all support host platforms and applications including prior releases on short notice. When support tickets are verified as a defect and assigned to software development or QA teams for follow-up, the environment in which the defect was found should accompany the bug report to aid in the defect resolution and verification process. VMware Lab Manager can help your support organization close tickets more quickly while increasing software quality and customer satisfaction by giving every support engineer the ability to rapidly deploy software releases and host platforms, recreate customer environments, and share them with other teams. When traveling to a customer site to replicate an environment, users can import virtual machines created with VMware Workstation into VMware Lab Manager and share the environment with the team in the home office.
Training and Education
Setting up, tearing down and re-imaging lab equipment for training centers to support hands-on exercises requires hours of repetitive, manual labor from the IT organization. If systems and user accounts are not set up in time and configured correctly or if sufficient lab resources are simply not available, the success of the class is at stake. VMware Lab Manager makes it easy to set up, tear down and re-image lab equipment to support hands-on learning and collaboration with minimal effort from the IT organization. Instructors use Lab Manager to quickly deploy virtual lab systems to their students, and to create and update virtual machines shortly before each class. Students can interact with their lab systems directly through the Web browser from any computer with network access, suspend their virtual training environment and continue at a later time, or share virtual machines with other students as needed. Being able to scale a training environment with the number of participants reduces infrastructure cost and increases the effectiveness of the training service being offered.
Patch Testing
Keeping track of the many system configurations and applications that you need to update, upgrade or patch is a time-consuming task.. However with VMware Lab Manager, you can quickly and easily manage an entire library of system configurations at various patch levels. You can quickly retrieve previous system configurations from the archive to test patches, application updates and upgrades. VMware Lab Manager also lets you clone systems and deploy them simultaneously to enable development and test teams to work in parallel without causing network conflict. Defects can be captured in the library and reproduced to ensure high quality of service of systems rolled out into production.
"The great thing about Lab Manager is that any of our users can connect in to it from anywhere. If a site doesn’t have an Oracle expert, we can track him down somewhere in the company, and get help with the configuration, in the central lab. We could never do that with our physical lab."
— Mark Kramer, Software Engineer, CH2MHill
Software Demonstrations and Evaluations
Sales engineers, product managers and trade show staff rely on VMware Lab Manager to give software product demonstrations in a reliable and repeatable manner. Users can set up, capture and reset virtual machine configurations for demo environments in seconds--even multi-tier systems can be provisioned with ease. When there is a need to present multiple demos in parallel, Lab Manager allows for simultaneous deployment of identical machines with no risk of network conflicts. Users can access demo lab resources remotely through a secure connection to the corporate network, making your demo equipment portable and available around the clock.
Off-shoring and Outsourcing
With VMware Lab Manager, your outsourcing partners can remotely access your software lab in a secure environment that you control. IT administrators get the flexibility to quickly add, remove or replace outsourced resources as the business needs of the organization change. Strong access control helps to keep intellectual property secure in the VMware Lab Manager environment while eliminating time-consuming and costly replication of equipment in your partners’ lab.
Hosting Providers
Web and application hosting providers need to automate the provisioning of standardized system configurations to deliver services to their customers quickly and reliably. VMware Lab Manager and VMware Infrastructure 3 are the perfect solution for hosting providers looking for a scalable, highly available and managed infrastructure. Rapid provisioning and efficient use of server and storage resources in a virtualized environment offer competitive advantages for cost-sensitive service providers.
Get VMware Lab Manager Now
Evaluate VMware Lab Manager today. To get more information or purchase VMware Lab Manager, contact VMware directly at 1-877-4VMWARE (outside of North America dial 1-650-427-5000) or send a message to sales.
