Virima

Autonomic Computing Essential to Successful Discovery Efforts

Jenny Dowd — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:50:51 +0000

Autonomic Computing. You may have heard the term. Do you know what it is? Do you know how incredibly helpful it is to your discovery efforts?

Autonomic computing refers to the self- managing characteristics of distributed computing resources that are capable of adapting to unpredictable changes while shielding operators and users from the underlying complexity. An autonomic system makes decisions on its own using high-level policies. It will constantly check and optimize its status and automatically adapt itself to changing conditions.

There are many domain-specific management tools that contribute to the IT operations management framework, but one component that is missing is a core and central IT Business Operations Manager. A comprehensive Business Operations Manager provides up to date information on all IT infrastructure assets, their attributes, and their relationships and provides support for other areas such as IT Service Management, Compliance, Data Center Transformation projects etc. Despite the undisputed benefits, successful IT Business Operations implementations have been elusive for many IT organizations due to the complexity, rigidity, cost, lack of technology solutions and staffing requirements.

Many IT organizations are so focused on improving the operational efficiencies of the core business units they lack the resources to do the same for itself. For these organizations, the ideal IT Operations Management solution would reduce operational overhead and require minimal support from the IT resources that are attending to the urgent needs of the business. In short, what is needed is an intelligent and automated operations management platform that learns and corrects itself as it adapts to the IT organization, and not the other way around. Such a self-sustaining system would increase data accuracy and data completeness at a low cost of ownership and thereby prove to be a more reliable foundational component for the long term.

Virima’s EcosystemManager is that system, and Autonomic Social Discovery is the engine of EcosystemManager that automates infrastructure & knowledge discovery efforts. It collects hard to reach “tribal knowledge” and ID’s relationships between technologies, applications and business processes.

Autonomic Social Discovery:

Bridges the gap between technology and human discovery practices
Eliminates manual discovery of 20-50% of data not captured by tools
Compresses complex migration project discovery phase by 30% or more
Saves considerable human resource/consultant bandwidth and costs
Maintains data integrity throughout lifecycle of DCT program
Continues to deliver fresh data for improved operational management

Discovery done any other way is a waste of time, resources and money. How do you keep your discovery information fresh?

2/22 Lunch and Learn at Latisys’ Irvine Facility

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:40:55 +0000

Latisys Lunch & Learn Series: Feb. 22, 2012

Participants will learn how to accelerate Data Center Transformation (DCT) projects, while lowering costs and reducing risk. Topics include:

DCT Strategy – Choosing the best outsourcing option for your company.
Automating asset discovery with dependency mapping for a complete picture of your IT Ecosystem.
Program governance and project management for planning, implementation, control and on-time completion.
Methodologies and technology to reduce risk and ensure business continuity.

Virima Announces the General Availability of EcosystemManager v3.0

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:45:29 +0000

Exciting New User Interface and Enhanced Reporting Functionality Complement the Improvements to the Industry’s Only Autonomic Social Computing Engine That Delivers Comprehensive IT Operations Management

ATLANTA – January 26, 2012 – Virima Technologies, Inc. today announced general availability and stand-alone licensing of EcosystemManager^TM v3.0 (EM v3.0), a significant update to the first and only enterprise software that is built upon a patent-pending autonomic computing platform. EcosystemManager was designed to accelerate, automate and simplify IT operations management while lowering costs and reducing risk. The EM v3.0 release brings significant enhancements to the user interface (UI), a robust reporting module and a strengthened autonomic social computing engine.

EcosystemManager provides the automation, control and visibility organizations need to successfully navigate Data Center Transformation (DCT), compliance, audit and IT Operations Management projects. Change in the enterprise data center is routine so a tool like EM v3.0, with ITIL v3 support, is a critical resource for those tasked with managing the IT side of the business. The ValueChain Manager^TM module keeps discovery information fresh autonomically and provides unprecedented visibility into IT assets. The DCXpress^TM module provides integrated program, task and resource management while leveraging the valuable information contained within ValueChain Manager.

The EM v3.0 release includes these additions:

1) Major UI enhancements that simplify navigation, add visualization features, and dramatically improve the topology visualization of your IT network.

2) A robust reporting module that includes multiple types of reports for performance, audit, compliance, or ITIL support.

3) Improvements in the Autonomic Social Computing Engine now allow EM to not only ask users to fill in information gaps but it will also proactively present solutions from known possibilities.

“EcosystemManager represents a paradigm shift in the way you think about your IT Operations,” said Palaniswamy ‘Raj’ Rajan, Chairman and CEO of Virima Technologies. “Our autonomic technology proactively works for you 24×7, 365 days a year in keeping the information about your IT ecosystem current. Our consultants have been successfully using EM as a tool with our enterprise clients and there has been a demand to offer the software for purchase. We are pleased to make EM v3.0 available for a software subscription and licensing purchase effective immediately.”

Additionally, EM v3.0 brings improvements to the DCXpress module that include the ability to show the ‘percentage complete’ for projects and programs, and an improved Phase Gate logic to ensure important steps are not missed. EM v3.0 is the most comprehensive Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution in the industry today that helps manage your IT platform and assets regardless of whether it is hosted on your corporate campus or outsourced with managed and cloud services providers.
“EcosystemManager has always been innovative software in that it is the only tool on the market that automates the process of gathering the critical tribal knowledge that eludes the network scanning and discovery tools available on the market today,” said Karun Rajasekharan, Virima’s Chief Product Officer. “EcosystemManager provides the correlation of multiple layers of the IT stack from Infrastructure, Network, Server, Applications and Business Processes, and actively seeks to fill in information gaps so you have a complete, up to the minute picture of your IT environment and the related dependencies at all times. “

EcosystemManager v3.0 is available from Virima or through partner channels and pricing is done via monthly recurring or perpetual licensing. For more information, please visit Virima’s website or call 404-969-4180 (option 1).

About Virima
An innovator in accelerated Data Center Transformations and IT Operations management, Virima Technologies has the expertise and technology to manage the risks associated with complex data center consolidation, optimization and cloud migration projects. Its technology-enabled DCT FastPath^TMSolution leverages expert consultants, proven methodologies and the world’s first autonomic discovery and correlation software with built-in transformation program management. Virima’s technology approach to data center transformation provides effective alignment of an organization’s IT operations and assets with its business strategy and processes, enabling greater visibility into your IT ecosystem for audit, compliance and ITIL support functions. The result is data center transformation projects completed faster with significant savings over typical industry approaches. Learn more about Virima at www.virima.com or call 1-404-969-4180 x112.

CIO.com Makes Outsourcing Predictions for 2012

Jenny Dowd — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:36:24 +0000

Stephanie Overby, a regular contributor at CIO.com, wrote an article last week with 12 Outsourcing predictions for 2012. Among the predictions are that outsourcing deals will still be slow due to continuing economic uncertainty. Buyers will be leery of signing contracts while the threat of recession still looms. But when that outsourcing contract lowers your operating costs, isn’t that the smart choice to make in lean economic times?

Particularly interesting to us here at Virima was number 4 on the list – IT Service Buyers Look Beyond Labor Arbitrage.

“Outsourcing customers still want to keep costs low when they farm out IT services. But next year, they’ll want more—increased global flexibility or better technology, for example…(however)…Providers will still be overly focused on cost reduction for their clients, as opposed to process improvement and innovation.”

That has been our philosophy at Virima all along. We know the main reason our clients outsource is to save money, but if you are not delivering any value beyond that, you are doing a disservice to your clients. Innovative technology (EcosystemManager) and process improvement (IT Operations Management) have always been the cornerstones to Virima’s value proposition. We’re glad to see that 2012 will see that value come to the forefront.

Happy New Year from Virima Technologies!

Read the full article at CIO.com

Tier1 Research’s Take on the Latisys/Virima Partnership

aalbrecht — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:30:22 +0000

In today’s Tier1 Daily, Tier1 Research analysts Michael Levy and Stefanie Beaubien gave their take on the Latisys/Virima partnership, which was announced December 15, 2011.

In speaking about Virima’s EcosystemManager software suite, Tier1 said:

“T1R received a demo of the EcosystemManager and believes the project management tool provides an extremely valuable high-level, real-time view of a datacenter’s infrastructure, processes and particularly, people (made possible by Virima’s autonomic social engine). That is, after all information sources are linked to the software and digested. We can see why Latisys, in particular, would be disposed to forming a partnership with Virima.”

This is the value that Virima delivers to both customers and service providers, and Tier1 nailed it. Our Autonomic Social Discovery engine is unique in the industry and allows EcosystemManager to give enterprises a clearer, more complete picture of their IT infrastructure. Latisys sees this value as well and we are proud to partner with them in serving their enterprise clients.

In commenting on the partnership, Tier1 said:

“Migrating from an enterprise datacenter can be a tedious and daunting task. Latisys and Virima Technologies have teamed up to provide customers with a smoother transition to the multi-tenant datacenter (MTDC) model. Virima will offer Latisys customers its DCT FastPath service, which will assist with migrating IT infrastructure into Latisys’s datacenters. The services provided by Virima will help customers make the often difficult decisions, including infrastructure requirements and risk management, associated with datacenter migration…This partnership will allow Latisys to fine-tune its migration capabilities to better serve its nationwide customers through automated processes and functions.”

Read the full article here: Daily t1r_Virima Technologies_20 Dec 2011

451 Research Report: Latisys Partners with Virima Technologies to assist datacenter migrations

admin — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:41:27 +0000

Analyst: Michael Levy, Stefanie Beaubien

Migrating from an enterprise datacenter can be a tedious and daunting task. Latisys and Virima Technologies have teamed up to provide customers with a smoother transition to the multi-tenant datacenter (MTDC) model. Virima will offer Latisys customers its DCT FastPath service, which will assist with migrating IT infrastructure into Latisys’s datacenters. The services provided by Virima will help customers make the often difficult decisions, including infrastructure requirements and risk management, associated with datacenter migration.

Latisys’s facilities in northern Virginia, Chicago, Denver and Irvine will be strategically paired with customers based on the results delivered by Virima’s DCT FastPath. The goal is to locate each customer to the ideal facility or facilities based on the needs of the individual company. This partnership will allow Latisys to fine-tune its migration capabilities to better serve its nationwide customers through automated processes and functions….

Read the full report

A Perspective on the Latisys/Virima Partnership

Jenny Dowd — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:37:53 +0000

Last week Latisys and Virima announced a partnership that enables enterprise customers to seamlessly migrate IT infrastructure to Latisys’ data center colocation facilities and cloud platform.

Today, Phil Shih at Structure Research shared his perspective on the partnership.He concluded his article by saying, “… most importantly this is about bringing on capabilities and demonstrating value that reinforces the benefits of outsourced hosting while at the same time addressing concerns that can be a barrier to closing the deal. ”

We agree, Phil. Thank you.

Read the post at Structure Research.

Latisys Partners With Virima Technologies

admin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:42:16 +0000

To Deliver Accelerated Data Center Migration
Services To Enterprise Customers

Industry leading firms combine to deliver robust, customizable offering for enterprises seeking to shift IT infrastructure to Latisys’ data center colocation and cloud facilities

Englewood, CO (December 15, 2011) – Latisys, a leading national provider of IT outsourcing solutions from data center colocation to cloud, today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Virima Technologies, Inc. that enables enterprise customers to seamlessly migrate IT infrastructure to Latisys’ data center colocation facilities and cloud platform.

Virima Technologies, based in Atlanta, GA, is an innovator in accelerated Data Center Transformations and automated IT Operations change management. Virima manages the risks and activities associated with complex data center consolidation, optimization and cloud migration projects.

The firm’s technology-enabled DCT FastPathTM service – anchored by its EcosystemManagerTM software suite – accelerates data center transformations by automating key processes and functions such as discovery, change control and resource collaboration which helps to simplify and reduce the overall cost and risks of moving assets and applications.

“From day one, Latisys has focused on delivering more to our customers, and this partnership represents a unique opportunity to strengthen our data center migration capabilities,” said Christian Teeft, Vice President of Engineering, Latisys. “Enterprises transitioning IT infrastructure to a Latisys data center facility – be it to a cabinet, private cage, private suite or, more recently, our private cloud solution – will benefit from unparalleled visibility, flexibility and reliability to ensure their most critical assets are protected.”

Virima offers Latisys customers a specialized approach to Data Center Transformation (DCT) programs combining experience, best practices and technology. Virima works with Latisys customers to determine the requirements/infrastructure needs for their optimal IT environment, manage the risks associated with migrating data centers, and keep their project in line with business goals. The result is a clear roadmap to a Latisys data center facility with program management and seamless delivery capabilities to achieve rapid global deployments, quality results and significant cost savings.
We believe this partnership represents a true value-add for Latisys customers, and enables Virima to offer our customers the proven data center colocation and managed services that Latisys delivers,” said Andrew S. Albrecht, Chief Strategy Officer, Virima Technologies, Inc.

With state-of-the-art data center facilities in Northern Virginia, Chicago, Denver and Irvine, California, Latisys offers coverage across all U.S. time zones – including gateways into the Asia Pacific and Europe – delivering unmatched scalability and multi-site redundancy to enterprise customers whether they want to off-premise, off-load, optimize or on-demand their IT infrastructure.

About Latisys

Latisys is a leading national provider of colocation, private cloud solutions, managed hosting, managed services and disaster recovery options to medium-sized businesses, enterprise customers and government agencies. With a heritage serving business customers since 1994, and multiple high-density, SAS70 Type II compliant data centers across the United States, Latisys offers scalable outsourced IT infrastructure management solutions that provide customers what they need, when they need it. The firm’s new, state-of-the-art Tier III data center campus in Ashburn, Virginia compliments existing facility operations in Chicago, Denver and Irvine, California. As a data center-centric company, Latisys is quickly becoming the hosting and colocation company of choice for companies that demand more from their IT infrastructure partner. All while optimizing clients’ return on investment. All while ‘delivering more’. Call 1-866-956-9594 or visit www.latisys.com for additional information.

About Virima

An innovator in accelerated Data Center Transformations and IT Operations management, Virima Technologies has the expertise and technology to manage the risks associated with complex data center consolidation, optimization and cloud migration projects. Its technology-enabled DCT FastPathTM Solution leverages expert consultants, proven methodologies and the world’s first autonomic discovery and correlation software with built-in transformation program management. Virima’s technology approach to data center transformation provides effective alignment of an organization’s IT operations and assets with its business strategy and processes. The result is data center transformation projects completed faster with significant savings over typical industry approaches. Learn more about Virima at www.virima.com or call 1-404-969-4180 x112.

Need Data Center Space? Come to Atlanta!

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 04:35:12 +0000

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reported on Friday that Atlanta is in the midst of a data center building boom.

“Metro Atlanta is witnessing a data center building boom that has put it on the cusp of becoming one of the nation’s top-tier markets. The region, which has more than 50 data centers, is seeing a surge in new construction, as global demand for the mammoth server farms outstrips supply,” the article by Urvaksh Karkaria states.

Leading the charge is one of Virima’s strategic service provider partners, Quality Technology Services (QTS).

“QTS has acquired about 21 acres adjacent to its Suwanee data center, where it could develop a roughly 200,000-square-foot data center. While the size and configuration will depend on anchor tenants’ requirements, it will be on par with the nearby 363,000-square-foot Suwanee data center,” continues the article.

Atlanta has always been somewhat of an underground technology city. Will this raise our profile as one of the top technology hubs east of Silicon Valley? One thing we do know for sure is that it’s good for Atlanta business.

Can the Competition Take a Bite out of VMware’s Share of the Virtualization Pie?

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 22:06:35 +0000

Virtualization management firm Veeam Software commissioned an ongoing, quarterly study through a market research firm, which in the third quarter 2011 surveyed IT decision-makers at 578 businesses with at least 1,000 employees in the United States and Europe.

The results showed that while VMware still has a huge lead, 38% of enterprises noted that they plan to change their primary hypervisor for server virtualization within the next year. But those results are questionable, at least by one Gartner analyst’s opinion. Making a move is not that easy. And what VMware competitor stands to benefit most if these enterprises all make a move? Get the answers in the full article by Jon Brodkin at ars technica.