eG Enterprise supports both agent-based and agentless monitoring for VMware ESX 3, 3.5 and 3i servers. In Sun container environments, an eG agent on a Solaris server can be configured to monitor all the zones on the server and compare resource usage levels across the zones. eG Enterprise v4.1 is priced per ESX server monitored. A 25-node environment would start at $50,000.

Further, Netuitive, a vendor with real-time performance management software for VMware environments, is expected to launch a version of its Netuitive Service Analyzer, which provides for self-learning performance management and automatically monitors the health of applications across both virtual and physical environments. It correlates the information gathered between physical and virtual environments and gives a view of the entire environment. Netuitive Service Analyzer is priced at $20,000 per application view; a small deployment could cost $100,000.

Finally, the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC), a non-profit corporation that establishes benchmarks, has established a new virtualization committee, which will develop an industry standard benchmark for virtual performance in data center servers. The committee's goal is to introduce a benchmark in the second half of this year. Among members of the committee are AMD, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Parallels, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Trigence, Unisys and VMware.

© 2009 CXO Media Inc.