I already blogged about it, but the new product VMware Stage Manager is now available as a beta download. Try it! Key features in this release:

• Rapidly create new multi-server software configurations (services)
• Monitor resource usage on a per-service, per-stage and per-instance basis
• Easily perform operations on a complete service (e.g. cloning, deploying, archiving, etc.)
• Marshall changes across the service lifecycle, interacting with external process management/workflow system to ensure compliance with service transition policies
• Maintain an archive of past service configurations supporting compliance and recovery operations
• Maintain an auditable history of software configuration changes
• Manage storage behavior on a per-stage basis to maximize storage efficiency
• Control access to services on a per-service, per-stage and per-instance basis
• Inherit then deploy services to resource pools created within VMware VirtualCenter