By VSM News Staff

published: Wednesday, April 23 2008

BURLINGTON, MA--(Marketwire - April 23, 2008) -

As the virtualization phenomenon takes off, IT managers are facing a new set of challenges. These challenges include managing the performance of increasingly complex systems and determining the real impact of virtualization on IT infrastructure. In response to this market need, Sysload Software (www.sysload.com), a provider of performance and capacity management solutions for data centers, announced today that it has released SP-ANALYST for VMware ESX infrastructures.

SP-ANALYST for VMware ESX provides increased frequency and higher granularity of data collection, the use of a single console to monitor both physical and virtual machines, and the adding of a feature that controls the timekeeping discrepancy on machines running the ESX Server platform. By providing a centralized, real-time view of the data center, Sysload's solutions make performance management easier, even on the most complex virtual infrastructures.

Perpetual licenses for SP-ANALYST configurations start at $13,560.

Revealing the real impact of virtualization on IT systems

As more and more IT departments opt to consolidate or virtualize their servers, physical equipment is being literally pushed to its limits. In this context, effective management of server capacity and performance is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, performance monitoring in such environments is becoming more complex. It is difficult to determine the real impact that virtual machines have on servers and/or data centers.

In order to anticipate performance degradation, avoid virtual machine proliferation and proactively resolve incidents, IT managers need a tool capable of simultaneously managing heterogeneous infrastructures and specific virtual environments.

"We have identified these technological challenges and have aligned our strategy to provide a broad range of solutions specially adapted to virtualized environments," said Yann Guernion, Chief Technology Officer of Sysload Software. "We have worked to overcome the surveillance restraints characteristic of virtualized infrastructures and in so doing, have become unchallenged experts in the field."

From a detailed to a global view of the data center

Sysload's solutions are able to handle the complex challenges posed by virtualized infrastructures thanks to their multi-platform functionality and their advanced data collection technology.

Sysload's full range of solutions supports multi-platform environments in terms of equipment, operating systems, and proprietary virtualization platforms (e.g., VMware, SUN Solaris, HP-ux, IBM Aix, IBM i5/OS, Linux, Windows, Novell, Citrix XenServer).

Sysload's data collection technology is based on dedicated data collection agents deployed directly on the monitored system that allow objective monitoring of an ensemble of physical and/or virtual servers. Sysload agents can collect up to 300 metrics directly from the heart of the monitored systems with very high frequency (intervals as low as 1 second) while consuming minimal resources (less than one percent of CPU with no continuous network traffic thanks to localized history files). This fine data granularity ensures precise monitoring of system utilization and allows the detection of virtualization-related micro saturation incidents that cannot be detected by most other monitoring tools on the market.

Dealing with the timekeeping problem on VMware ESX

Users of the VMware ESX virtualization platform have reported problems measuring virtual machine performance due to a technical issue related to CPU timekeeping. The ESX hypervisor distributes CPU times sequentially to each virtual machine (VM1, then VM2, then VM1, etc.) Meanwhile, a virtualized operating system doesn't "know" that it is in a virtual environment and functions as though it was a standalone system. Therefore, it doesn't recognize the "micro pauses" brought about due to sharing the CPU with other machines. This causes incoherence when measuring performance from the virtual machines.

In an effort to strengthen its status as the world's leading expert on performance management for virtualization platforms, Sysload has launched a new generation of agents for virtual machines, capable of measuring the real impact of virtual machines on host systems and also of neutralizing this timekeeping discrepancy on ESX. SP-ANALYST for VMware ESX is currently the only solution available on the market with this capability.

About Sysload Software

Founded in 1999 in Creteil, France with US headquarters in Burlington, Mass., Sysload Software provides a scalable, distributed solution to manage the performance and capacity of all types of servers found within today's corporate environments (Windows, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, Linux, Citrix, I-series, Netware, etc.) Thanks to a unique agent technology for VMware ESX 3.0, IBM-LPAR, and Solaris 10, Sysload provides the solution to address the server capacity management challenge in virtualized environments. Sysload has forged partnerships with major manufacturers and software developers such as Microsoft, IBM, Sun, HP, VMware, Novell and Oracle, to guarantee the performance and interoperability of its solutions. Customers include BNP Paribas, Calyon, Clearstream, Sanofi-Aventis, Genzyme, Trading Technologies, British Telecom, Airbus, Essilor and Renault. Visit www.sysload.com