VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager

Overview:

VMware vCenter™ Lifecycle Manager, part of the VMware vCenter family of management products, automates virtual machine provisioning tasks, enabling IT administrators to minimize manual repetitive tasks, standardize processes and optimize resource utilization.

Benefits

• Standardize virtual machine deployments across the enterprise.
• Establish a consistent process to request, provision, deploy and decommission virtual machines.
• Gain control and visibility over virtual machine deployments.
• Eliminate repetitive virtual machine lifecycle management tasks for greater productivity.
• Prevent virtual machine sprawl and enforce compliance with IT policies.
• Optimize resource utilization for greater ROI.

Standardize Virtual Machine Deployments Across the Enterprise

Reduce the complexity and variance of VM configuration types by creating a standardized catalog of IT services with Lifecycle Manager. Standardized virtual environments lower administrative costs and simplify management in compliance with IT policies. Whether you’re planning to deploy virtual infrastructure more broadly, or apply lifecycle policies to existing virtual machines, Lifecycle Manager simplifies IT administration with a consistent process for deploying and decommissioning virtual machines.

Streamline Virtual Machine Request and Approval Processes

Employ a consistent and scalable mechanism to route and approve all requests for virtual machines in compliance with IT policies. Rather than dealing with one-off requests via the phone or email, Lifecycle Manager provides an easy-to-use request portal for business users to provide all the information needed to correctly provision virtual machines based on business criteria and infrastructure mappings defined by IT. At any time, IT administrators can intervene, change or deploy virtual machines manually.

Track and Control Virtual Machines

Track ownership of virtual machines and keep records of when virtual machine are created, deployed and decommissioned. Lifecycle Manager offers powerful reporting capabilities, so you know exactly when a request was made, approved or denied, and when virtual machines are scheduled to be decommissioned.

Integrate with Existing Enterprise Management Solutions

Leverage your existing investments in service desk, change management and configuration databases. Lifecycle Manager seamlessly integrates with 3rd party solutions to provide end-to-end management of physical and virtual infrastructure.

Using VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager:

VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager provides a service catalog of virtual machine configurations to automate provisioning tasks and standardize the way virtual machines are requested, deployed and decommissioned. Lifecycle Manager helps IT administrators deploy virtual infrastructure more broadly, gain more control and visibility, and optimize resource utilization for greater ROI. With Lifecycle Manager, IT administrators can:

• Deploy virtual infrastructure more broadly.
  Lifecycle Manager automates provisioning and decommissioning workflows, helping IT staff do more with less. By eliminating repetitive, manual, error-prone tasks, Lifecycle Manager helps organizations increase admin-per-VM ratios and scale out virtual infrastructure deployments more quickly.
• Standardize virtual machine deployments.
  By creating a catalog of standard IT services, Lifecycle Manager reduces variance of virtual machine configuration types and lowers management costs. IT administrators gain more control over virtual machine deployments and how resources are used in the IT environment.
• Streamline request and approval processes.
  Lifecycle Manager establishes a consistent and scalable mechanism to route and approve all requests for virtual machines, ensuring compliance with internal policies.
• Track and control virtual machines.
  Tracking who owns virtual machines in a virtual environment or keeping record of when a virtual machine is created, deployed or decommissioned can be challenging. Lifecycle Manager offers powerful tracking and reporting capabilities, so IT staff knows exactly when a request was made, approved or denied. IT staff also knows when a virtual machine was deployed and how long it has been in operation.
• Integrate with existing management tools.
  Many organizations have existing tools to handle various aspects of IT, such as change management, asset management, networking or storage. Lifecycle Manager seamlessly integrates with third-party tools to provide end-to-end management of provisioning workflows across physical and virtual infrastructure.

All virtual machine requests can be reviewed and approved from a central location. Automated provisioning workflows ensure proper configuration of virtual machine deployments and free up resources at the end of the virtual machine’s lifecycle.

How Does VMware Lifecycle Manager Work?

VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager provides an easy-to-use Web interface for managing the interactions among everyone involved in the lifecycle of a virtual machine, from provisioning to decommissioning. During setup, IT administrators create a catalog of virtual machine templates that users can view and select. The templates help users determine the characteristics of available virtual machines (machine size, memory, storage, backup services, etc.). IT administrators also define what types of approvals are required prior to virtual machine deployment.

After the initial setup is completed, users can log into Lifecycle Manager and submit requests for virtual machines. During the request process, users specify the service template and quality of service they need. Based on these request criteria, Lifecycle Manager can determine the specific resources that best support the request. For example, a request for a production virtual machine requiring high performance will be mapped to the highest performing server, network and storage resources available in the virtualized environment.

Once submitted, requests are forwarded to an IT administrator for review and approval. If approved, automated virtual machine provisioning and placement occurs based on previously defined lifecycle management policies. Users receive notification via email when their virtual machines are deployed and accessible.

When a virtual machine reaches the end of its lifecycle, Lifecycle Manager will decommission it. The decommission process, which consists of an optional archiving step and ultimately deleting a virtual machine, provides better resource utilization by ensuring resources come back into the resource pool for future use. If needed, users can request a lifecycle extension that must be reviewed and approved by an IT administrator instead of letting the virtual machine be decommissioned.

Key Features of Lifecycle Manager :

vCenter Lifecycle Manager is the best solution to automate VM provisioning tasks on VMware infrastructure. Building on vCenter Orchestrator and vCenter Server, Lifecycle Manager provides superior platform integration and advanced customization options for more automation of repetitive administrative tasks, optimized infrastructure utilization and higher ROI.

Key features include:

• Service Catalog - Standardize VMs deployments across the enterprise, establish a consistent provisioning process and reduce administrative overhead from bringing rogue or mis-configured VMs back into compliance with IT standards
• Task Automation - Automate routine VM lifecycle management tasks for greater productivity.
• Administrative Control - Gain more control and visibility over virtual machine deployments to optimize resource utilization for greater ROI.
• Enterprise Ready - Get immediate ROI from VM lifecycle policies applied to existing virtual infrastructure to free up unused resources, gain more control and automate routine tasks.

Service Catalog

Standardize VM provisioning requests with a set of pre-defined virtual machine templates provided by IT.

• Service Catalog: Provide a standardized set of virtual machine configurations according to IT policies.
• Service Tiers: Define what quality of service levels get configured during VM deployment (availability, security, monitoring).
• Web-based: Available to users via a web browser from anywhere on the corporate network

Task Automation

Automate routine lifecycle management tasks, reclaim unused resources and enforce IT policies across virtual machine deployments.

• Provisioning and Change Requests: Automate virtual machine guest customization, system and network configuration tasks based on pre-defined policies.
• Resource Reclamation: Automatically free up resources by decommissioning virtual machines that have reached the end of their lifecycle.
• Auto Import: Apply Lifecycle Manager policies to existing virtual environments.

Administrative Control

Centralize virtual machine requests and streamline the approval process with the Lifecycle Manager web portal. The portal is also used to establish the service catalog, configure resource mappings and define placement policies.

• Request Portal: Provide single portal for users, approvers and administrators to streamline VM request, change and approval processes.
• Placement Policies: Establish policies to assign groups of users to specific server, storage and network resource pools.
• Tracking & Reporting: Easily track the status of virtual machines through request, approval, provisioning, and decommissioning.

Enterprise Ready

Lifecycle Manager is designed to easily fit into existing environments and scale in support of thousands of VM deployments across multiple datacenters. Integrations with third- party enterprise management systems create a seamless solution for end-to-end management of provisioning workflows across physical and virtual infrastructure.

• Enterprise Scalability: Connect Lifecycle Manager to multiple virtual datacenters to manage all VM provisioning requests from a central location.
• Fully customizable: Adapt existing workflows or implement new ones to better fit your needs.
• LDAP Support: Connect Lifecycle Manager to user authentication systems to centrally manage access control in the corporate environment.
• Third-party integrations: Seamlessly integrate Lifecycle Manager with existing management systems for end-to-end management of provisioning workflows across physical and virtual infrastructure.

Documentation:

VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager Data Sheet (.PDF)