How the company got into cloud computing: Gauvin launched Virtual Ark as a value-added service provider aimed at addressing the gap between cloud providers and enterprises that want to SaaS-enable a core business application.
VMLogixHeadquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.What it offers: VMLogix LabManager – Cloud Edition, a virtual lab management solution tailored for Amazon Web Services and supporting Windows and Linux guest images as well as ISV-specific Amazon Machine Images.How much it costs: Promotional pricing available upon request
Why we're watching it: Like start-up CloudShare, VMLogix is targeting the all-important test-and-development arena – a best-practices starting point for enterprises that want to begin experimenting in the cloud. Virtual lab management software lets users create virtual instances of physical infrastructure on demand. VMLogix comes to cloud-based virtual lab management with experience garnered from enabling on-demand lab environments on virtualization platforms. That might serve well as the virtual lab environment heats up going forward.
"Virtual lab management continues to prove itself as a rare, real, breakthrough use of technology revolutionizing the computing industry and the enterprise," says voke Research analysts in a March 2010 report on the technology. Voke researchers base their assessment on an independent survey of 100 organizations using virtual lab technology conducted from August 2009 to this past February.
Voke calls virtual lab management strategic, empowering and relatively easy and low risk to adopt, saying it delivers immediate, measurable benefits and a clear, quick return on investment. It predicts "virtual lab management will be the new 'hub' of the modern application life cycle" and emphasizes that "uses for this technology extend the testing lab.
"The ability to rapidly deliver an environment for the needs of testing, development, sales, marketing, training, technical publications, support and other constituents in an organization enhances business alignment, removes barriers and lowers costs, particularly capital expenditures.
Who heads the company: Sameer Dholakia, CEO, comes to VMLogix from enterprise software firm Trilogy, where he spent 12 years in various management positions.
How the company got into cloud computing: LabManagerCE is a natural evolution of VMLogix' virtual lab management technology for internal enterprise use
Schultz is an IT writer in Chicago.
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