It’s probably no coincidence that demand for virtualization has grown as the economy has sunk. In tough times, you want to save money, and the nice thing about virtualization is that it lets you stretch your existing resources and postpone the procurement of new capacity.

In that light, it was inevitable that mValent, a provider of tools that track configuration changes to Java EE and .NET apps, would eventually bite the bullet and add support of tracking app configurations that are created in VMware or other virtual containers. The latest upgrade adds the ability to discover and take snapshots of what’s inside a VMware Xen, or Microsoft Viridian container.

The key to the new upgrade is a way to manage all the minor changes that occur to the software configurations that comprise an image each time a new virtual container is deployed to a server. Instead of creating a new image, mValent’s tool simply compares the differences. For instance, an instance of JBoss appserver might include a new patch that wasn’t present the last time you deployed it in a VMware container. Instead of creating a totally new image, mValent simply tracks the difference. In the long run, this makes managing the software configurations far less confusing, as you don't have to wade through hundreds of almost identical images to find which is the most current  one, or which iteration caused a server crash.

The Virtual Automation Module will be added to the next release of mValent Integrity as part of normal maintenance.

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