Surgient announced it will offer integrated solutions with products built using IBM Jazz collaborative technologies. As a result, IBM quality assurance users can use Surgient's Virtual Automation Platform to allocate IT resources and set up and tear down virtual labs on-demand for software testing and quality assurance, introducing new efficiencies to the application development lifecycle.

IBM Jazz provides an open and extensible platform on top of which IBM, business partners and clients are building new development tools that integrate collaboration, team awareness and project health into every aspect of the software development lifecycle. Later this year, Surgient's Virtual Automation Platform will include an integration with IBM Rational Quality Manager, comprehensive test planning and process software that provides a single view into all aspects of a quality plan. Surgient's product currently integrates with IBM's Rational BuildForge.

"IBM created Jazz and the Jazz initiative to encourage collaboration and innovation among dispersed developers and development teams," said Michael Loria, vice president of business development, IBM Rational Software. "Surgient's virtual test lab management support for IBM Rational Quality Manager helps eliminate physical and virtual distances within development team environments."

By implementing the Surgient Virtual Automation Platform, development and QA organizations will benefit from Surgient's self-service IT solution for virtual lab management. IBM Rational customers using IBM Rational Quality Manager can request and build a live application testing environment with specific configurations without manual administration from a company's IT department, freeing up IT personnel to address additional business critical initiatives. Surgient was a visionary behind virtual lab management beginning in 2003 and now serves many of the world's largest companies.

"Surgient's Virtual Automation Platform is one of the most comprehensive, mature and powerful orchestration engines in the industry today," said Sameer Jagtap, vice president of product strategy at Surgient. "By leveraging virtualization technologies and fully automating complex IT operations for pre-production and production data centers, Surgient streamlines the application development lifecycle by allowing developers, testers and other users to drive this process in a self-service and on-demand model."

Jagtap added: "By combining virtualization and Surgient's automation technology, IT organizations can reduce costs for infrastructure and administration, create a powerful self-service environment for developers and testers, and ultimately accelerate the application development lifecycle. IBM's powerful lifecycle development tools based on IBM Jazz collaborative technologies are a natural complement for Surgient solutions, and we are excited to bring this integrated solution to market."