In march VMware launched vFabric Application Director a new product with the aim to simply the process of applications deployment and update into cloud environments.
AppDirector allows you to declare applications and related components making a blueprint, then it integrates with the vCloud API’s to deploy into a private or public cloud.
What you obtain is a vAPP that is a container able to carry an entire multi-tier application with even its own scaling rules for each of the tiers.
VMware offers AppDirector in a bundle with vFabric AppInsight called vFabric APM, in order to allow monitoring of the released applications.
With vFabric Application Director, vFabric AppInsight and the rest of the vFabric product line we are seeing VMware’s application level strategy come to life. It is clear that VMware is making an enormous and strategic investment on this front, probably second only in priority to the continued investment in vSphere’s domination of data center virtualization. The combination of vFabric and vSphere also brings into clear focus the fullness of the VMware software stack, and the degree to which VMware seriously threatens established OS vendors like Microsoft and Red Hat.
We recommend the reading of this article by The Virtualization Practice.