Google Cloud announced VM Manager, a suite of infrastructure management tools to simplify and automate the maintenance of large fleets of Compute Engine VMs. Google stated that the new solution has Google-scale infrastructure in mind, providing a simplified toolset for automated compliance reporting and software deployment at scale.
VM Manager services
Its automated features simplify and reduce the complexity of ensuring compliance, observability, and maintaining the security of large VM fleets. VM Manager’s single dashboard increases compliance visibility and real-time tracking of inventory data to drive actionable insights and maintain peak infrastructure performance.
- Patch management: This service keeps your systems up-to-date against vulnerabilities by allowing you to apply OS patches across a set of VMs, receive patch compliance data across your OS environments, and automate installation of OS patches across VMs—all from one centralized location.
- Configuration management: This service allows you to deploy, query, and maintain consistent configurations for your VMs. It comes with automated remediation features to reduce manual effort and keep your fleet compliant. Guest policies on each Compute Engine VM keep your software configurations consistent.
- Inventory management lets you collect your OS and package information. You can identify which VMs are running a specific version of an OS system, view packages that are installed on a VM, generate a list of package updates available for each VM, and identify missing packages, updates, or patches for a VM.