VMware Stage Manager FAQs

On July 13, 2009, VMware announced the general availability of VMware vCenter Lab Manager 4. Based on customer feedback, Lab Manager and Stage Manager are now unified as a single, more flexible product offering. Additionally, Lab Manager 4 offers many new features, such as ESXi support and next-generation network fencing capabilities that make this release a worthwhile upgrade for both Lab Manager and Stage Manager customers. VMware vCenter Stage Manager customers with active Support and Subscription (SnS) agreements will receive Lab Manager 4 licenses free of charge and can choose to upgrade to Lab Manager 4 at your earliest convenience.

Lab Manager 4 preserves the key features and concepts implemented in Stage Manager. Some of the Stage Manager features have been renamed to better align with existing Lab Manager functionality, but Lab Manager 4 preserves the overall Stage Manager workflows.

For a detailed list of changes, please read the Lab Manager 4.0 Installation and Upgrade guide: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/labmanager_pubs.html

Lab Manager 4 preserves all data created in Stage Manager. We recommend that you backup the Stage Manager database before upgrading the server software. Please read the Lab Manager 4 Installation and Upgrade guide for more details: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/labmanager_pubs.html

Stage Manager is fully supported as defined by VMware’s General Support Lifecycle policy. Please visit http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/eos.html for details.

Stage Manager customers with active support and subscription (SnS) contracts will receive Lab Manager 4 licenses free of charge. The quantity of licenses received during the upgrade cannot exceed the number of licenses covered by SnS on July 13, 2009. Both Stage Manager and Lab Manager 4 are licensed on a per processor basis. For example, if you have 10 Stage Manager for 1 processor licenses, you’ll receive 10 Lab Manager 4 for 1 processor licenses. The upgrade of your Stage Manager licenses is incremental of any existing Lab Manager licenses you may already have. For example, if you have purchased 5 Lab Manager 3.x and 10 Stage Manager licenses, you’ll receive 15 Lab Manager 4 licenses.

Your new Lab Manager 4 licenses have been deposited in your account on the VMware license portal which you can access at https://www.vmware.com/accounts  

If you are a License Administrator listed on the Stage Manager SnS contract, you should have received an email notification from VMware providing more details about the license upgrade. Please contact VMware Support if you are a license administrator but you cannot see the Lab Manager 4 licenses in the license portal: http://vmware.com/support/phone_support.html

Current Stage Manager SnS customers will automatically receive Lab Manager 4 licenses. Your SnS agreement will be updated to reflect the change from Stage Manager to Lab Manager 4. At the next renewal of your SnS agreement, the then current fees and policies for Lab Manager 4 will be in effect.

The Lab Manager 4 product page provides a product overview at http://www.vmware.com/labmanager
Lab Manager 4 product documentation is available here: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/labmanager_pubs.html
Lab Manager 4 video tutorials are available here:
http://vmware.com/products/labmanager/tutorials.html