SAN JOSE, Calif., April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Cassatt(R) Corporation, an innovator in providing enterprise software and services to enable agile IT infrastructures, today announced general availability of the Cassatt Collage(TM) Cross-Virtualization Manager (XVM). This product enables efficient and reliable server consolidation by providing unified, automated management for both physical and virtual machines (VMs). XVM helps customers rein in the growing problem of "virtual machine sprawl," using a vendor-neutral architecture to automate control across virtual servers from multiple sources, including VMware, Xen, and Microsoft.

"Virtualization is a key technology that can be applied to reduce costs and increase flexibility through server consolidation," said Rich Green, executive vice president of products at Cassatt. "To truly get the benefits of server consolidation, customers need to find a way keep VM sprawl in check. Cassatt Collage XVM gives you that control. By automating the operation, migration, and execution of VMs, as well as physical hardware, our customers are seeing five-to-one server consolidation ratios without availability risks and with substantial reductions in operations costs."

Cassatt Collage XVM allows customers to automate the operations of both their physical and virtual servers while supporting their need to choose the appropriate virtualization technology for their particular infrastructure. XVM enables customers to host any combination of virtual machines, including VMware ESX, VMware Server, Xen, and Microsoft Virtual Server. In addition, customers can manage their physical servers from a range of vendors including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems, and others.

The automated management of both physical and virtual resources with XVM gives IT departments a way to handle server consolidation projects more safely, while improving the service levels of the applications they are supporting, all without human intervention.

XVM provides an array of control and automation capabilities including: -- Automated software deployment for both physical and virtual servers -- including the ability to run the same software image on either a virtual server or directly on a bare-metal server. -- Automated responses to failures of both physical and virtual servers, enabling high availability for applications. -- Automatic scaling of applications by creating additional virtual servers on physical machines that have available CPU and memory capacity.

XVM builds on the same foundation as Cassatt's recently announced Java virtualization product, the Cassatt Collage Web Automation Manager (WAM). These products, operating in tandem or in isolation, allow customers to seamlessly automate the management of all their data center resources, including physical servers (Intel, AMD, and SPARC), operating systems (Windows, Linux, and Solaris), Java applications servers, and now general-purpose virtual machines.

The Cassatt products require no code changes to existing applications, middleware, or operating systems, speeding time to production deployment and reducing hardware, software, and labor costs.

According to a report from Gartner, "the focus on servers is increasingly shifting from the consideration of physical devices to the creation, management, and use of virtual ones. In this transition, IT departments are examining the performance and operation of mixed and variable workloads across the server infrastructure. The drivers behind, and the benefits to be achieved from, physical server consolidation have not diminished, but the more far-reaching benefits of server virtualization are now becoming better understood. New tools and technologies are being developed to achieve virtualization of the physical device, as well as to deliver the dynamic (and increasingly automated) server provisioning and resource management. Management is moving steadily toward service- and policy-based objectives set by the IT department, thereby maximizing the value of the infrastructure to the business." (Gartner, "Hype Cycle for Server Technologies, 2005," Donna Scott, et al., July 14, 2005.)

Availability

The Cassatt Collage Cross-Virtualization Manager (XVM), with support for VMware ESX and VMware Server is now generally available. Support for Xen will be available in June 2006. Support for Microsoft Virtual Server is planned for the second half of 2006.

About Cassatt Corporation

Cassatt is an enterprise software and services company delivering solutions that turn an organization's current IT infrastructure into a dynamic, virtual pool of resources that can be tapped on demand. Goal-driven automation from Cassatt continuously optimizes IT resources to meet business service level agreements, dramatically improving IT responsiveness while slashing costs. Based in San Jose, California, Cassatt is a privately held company led by BEA founding CEO Bill Coleman, with financial backing from NEA and Warburg Pincus. For more information, visit http://www.cassatt.com/.

NOTE: Cassatt is a registered trademark and Collage is a trademark of Cassatt Corporation. Third party marks and brands are the property of their respective holders.

CONTACT: Kristi Kilpatrick Page One PR +1-925-964-0671 Kristi@pageonepr.com

CONTACT: Kristi Kilpatrick of Page One PR, +1-925-964-0671, or
Kristi@pageonepr.com, for Cassatt Corporation

Web site: http://www.cassatt.com/