So you're thinking about automating your test and development environment huh? Well you are definitely moving in the right direction with VMware's Lab Manager 2.5. Now in all honesty I really have nothing to compare it to, I haven't demo'd VMlogix's LabManager offering, supposedly a like product. But I will say I have gone through the pains of managing a dynamic lab environment, so I know what value these solutions add. VMware is definitely making the most of its akimbi systems acquistion and from my eyes looks to be the leader in this space. But take my comments with a grain of salt as they are 100% one-sided, anyways let's get started.

Below are the four key components of a basic LM environment. This article will briefly describe each but future articles will talk more in depth about sizing implementations, and best practices.

1. Physical or virtual (preferable) Windows 2003 system. This will run the LM server software and control the configuration tear up and tear down, template creation, and general control of the managed server.

2. Managed ESX Server. At the heart of LM is ESX 3.X. A LM agent is manually installed on each LM managed host, communications between the two parties operate over tcp port 5212.

3. Storage Server. This really is a separate logical entity but physically is whatever managed host is connected to shared storage. If you have one managed server it is the storage server as well from what I understand.

4. Media Server. This is typically share based via NFS or CIFS/SMB and essentially houses all pertinent media, ie. ISO's, flp's, etc. For simplicity sake, my design placed this service on the LM server on a secondary drive.