Adaptive Computing, the folks that manage the world's largest computing installations with their Moab self-optimizing cloud management and HPC workload management solutions, have revved their Moab Cloud Suite.

The widgetry now improves the time to cloud deployment by means of out-of-the-box integration with existing infrastructure. It also enables IT to provision different organizational groups more easily by streamlining the tasks required with a new dashboard portal and automated budget allocation.

The 7.2 update integrates with virtualization, management and other cloud platforms, such as VMware Center and HP Cloud Services, via connectors, which is supposed to extend the value of the customer's existing investments and help them avoid vendor lock-in since the widgetry is extensible or will be.

Gartner recommend that "customers unify IT operations management architecture, inclusive of services management, across both legacy data center and cloud environments to provide the key benefits of improved visibility, service analytics, capacity management, process integration and staff and asset efficiencies. Customers should select a cloud management platform partially based on the degree of heterogeneity they require to unify existing management software with their cloud management."

The company figures cloud infrastructure should meet the specific needs of different organizational groups. Admins can now create different groups and sub-groups and define permissions governing access and management. The groups can be synchronized with existing LDAP groups to simplify management. Users can be grouped by teams or roles and responsibilities, providing each user the access they need without sacrificing security.

The new dashboard portal is supposed to make users and admins be more productive by grouping data views and management actions together so common tasks are done quicker and easier. Key subjects are listed with every relevant action in easy-to-navigate panes, and dashboard filters allow multiple filtering options to speed common cloud requests and status tasks. The dashboards now show more actionable data, summarized in a comprehensible at-a-glance format with improved data list views and one-click drilldowns on most data items. Admins get a better overall picture of their current cloud conditions.

The 7.4 release also enables budgets to be automatically reset. It's supposed to provide greater transparency into usage and availability, improving budget-planning decisions without waiting for reports. It also improves showback and chargeback reporting and allows budgets to be set across multiple groups or accounts as necessary.

Adaptive CEO Robert Clyde says "As more businesses introduce private clouds, it's important to keeps costs at a minimum by making the most of the current infrastructure. We designed Moab Cloud Suite 7.2 to aid them in making the smoothest, most efficient transition possible. Updated accounting features and improved integration with third-party technology will make the process even more beneficial for organizations."