The supported virtual environments are XenServer 5 or later, VMware ESX 2.5 or later with VirtualCenter 2 or later included and Hyper-V 1.0. It was necessary to install proxy agents for each kind of virtual environment that we had deployed in the test bed.

Starting up

The default installation was not complicated. Configuring the product did require a careful reading of the manual. But the upgrade to Version 3.1.1 was an error-ridden process. For example, some user-based data did not correctly transfer during the upgrade. We had to add those manually to the database. A DynamicOps spokesperson said these database problems we incurred ought to be fixed by the time you read this.

In our initial test with VMware ESX, we had to enter information for many different configuration settings such as blueprints, provisioning groups, cost profiles and VM machine name prefixes before we were able to add our VirtualCenter information and import our guests into the VRM console. Then, we were able to start and stop the machines that were imported by using the VRM Infrastructure Organizer tool

When we tested VRM with XenServer, we had to add XenServer information manually, first adding the host in the hosts category, then creating a reservation to make sure there is enough storage and CPU, then assigning the reservation to the host. After that, we could finally add a VM by entering in the details about each VM.