Cloud management software provider Platform Computing has released a new version of its modular software for building and managing enterprise private clouds. Called Platform ISF 2.1, its application-centric approach enables customers to support multi-tier applications in addition to provisioning infrastructure (IaaS) and platform (middleware) as services. In reality, it can support the entire application lifecycle from dev/test to production-ready application clouds in as quickly as 30 days, said Platform.

Proven by large enterprise adopters over the past year, Platform ISF automates delivery of complex enterprise infrastructure and production applications across heterogeneous virtual, physical and public cloud resources, asserts Platform.  By capturing corporate standards and business policies within the automation engine, companies improve both compliance and security, added Platform.

According to the supplier, Platform ISF 2.1 also employs an industry-first, dynamic "single cloud pane" for cloud administrators and delegates; expanded out-of-the-box definitions for multi-tier application environments such as Hadoop, Jboss, Tomcat and WebSphere. And provides enhanced business policy driven automation for both green energy and high availability across multiple data centers, affirmed Platform

In a company statement, Cameron Haight, research vice president, Gartner (News - Alert), said “Enterprises looking to take advantage of the cloud do so for many reasons but one of the key ones is to enhance their agility in response to changing business dynamics.”

“This means that the technology used to manage cloud environments should be similarly agile and act to facilitate and not impede this industry movement. IT organizations should look for tools that can address the various cloud usage scenarios without demanding excessive investments in management infrastructure or staff support,” added Haight.

Likewise, said Jay Muelhoefer, VP Enterprise Marketing, Platform Computing (News - Alert), "Today's enterprise data center is facing tremendous pressure to both innovate with new cloud architectures while operating legacy applications and heterogeneous systems. With that reality, adopting an open cloud management solution that supports flexibility and choice is critical."

He added, "Platform ISF is the best alternative to vertically integrated big vendor stacks or virtualization silos.  As an open, end-to-end solution, Platform ISF allows companies to benefit from the cloud, not stitch it together across multiple vendors like a systems integrator."

In essence, key features of Platform ISF 2.1 include ease of use, resource management, and application-centric. Platform claims that it is the industry first "single cloud pane" for IT administrators that unifies operational management and enables efficient consolidation of SLAs across applications into one view that encompasses both virtual and physical realms. While Resource management offers deeper VMWare integration with support for self-service creation of resource pools, DRS, snapshotting, linked clones, VLANs, vDisks, dynamic growth and adjustment of virtual machine sizes and multiple Virtual Centers.

The Application-centric approach provides out-of-the-box application catalog including Hadoop, Jboss, Tomcat, WebSphere and Platform LSF. Application lifecycle enhancements including versioning, cloning, reservation attribute modifications and support for application specific logs.

Platform ISF 2.1 is available now.  A free 30 day trial is available at www.platform.com/privatecloud.

This past fall at INTEROP New York, TMC (News - Alert) CEO Rich Tehrani interviewed Songnian Zhou, CEO of Platform Computing, about the company’s cloud management software. Check out the full video interview below.