Cloud management tools for beginners

Cloud management is a hot topic, so hot that every startup and established vendor has some form of tool for managing cloud computing environments. There are tools that monitor, tools that provision, and tools that cross the divide between both. Then there’s just vaporware, and sorting through that can be a challenge.

If your cloud deployment is fairly static or not mission-critical, then you may not need a dynamic provisioning system. In that case, the standard tools for resource adds/changes/removals included with the product may suffice.

Several providers have products designed for cloud computing management (VMware, OpenQRM, CloudKick, and Managed Methods), along with the big players like BMC, HP, IBM Tivoli and CA. Each uses a variety of methods to warn of impending problems or send up the red flag when a sudden problem occurs. Each also tracks performance trends.

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