The new IBM Systems Director VMControl Enterprise Edition offering, combined with IBM Tivoli software, gives businesses a single point of control across multiple types of IT systems and virtualisation technologies. It can cover UNIX/Linux, mainframe and x86 systems, as well as storage and network infrastructures.

VMControl's ability to dynamically move workloads and make adjustments allow IBM systems to be more effectively operated, and to use less power and cooling. VMControl would also help accelerate the deployment of cloud computing, which allows information and processing resources to be accessed remotely, said IBM.

Firms have turned to virtualisation to create multiple virtual servers or storage systems on a single physical system to cut costs and reduce energy consumption. However, many firms going down this route have run into problems when trying to manage many disparate virtualisation systems.

VMControl allows combinations of physical and virtual IBM servers to be managed as a single entity. IBM said the offering would help corporate data centres to simplify complex management functions, and better share and prioritise the use of critical resources like processing power, memory and storage.

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