There is no question virtual servers will challenge IT staff when it comes to the many facets of managing systems.

One facet start-up ManageIQ intends to master is virtual configuration management. ManageIQ developed its Enterprise Virtualization Management (EVM) Suite to take on virtual server configuration management and company executives say the technology goes a long way toward managing and securing the environments. The suite includes two applications: Insight and Control. ManageIQ recently upgraded the flagship offering with the release of EVM 2.0, which the start-up says includes additional capabilities to better govern virtual environments.

"This release includes more scope and more comprehensive capabilities that are based on direct customer input," says Joseph Fitzgerald, co-founder and CEO.

Fitzgerald previously served as CTO and director of product development for HP’s change and configuration management software business. He joined HP as part of the company’s acquisition of Novadigm, which he also co-founded. He says ManageIQ offers capabilities targeted to control virtual server configurations and prevent changes and drift from wreaking havoc on a virtual environment. With competition from vendors such as newcomer DynamicOps, Embotics, Fortisphere and Veeam, Fitzgerald says ManageIQ is focusing on its strengths in configuration management.

"We focus on preventing virtual server sprawl, detecting offline virtual machines, tracking the patching lifecycle and essentially all elements of configuration management and provisioning tools around virtual servers," he explains.

EVM 2.0 (see a slideshow of this and other products here) includes technology that enables the software to sit on the virtual fabric and see into virtual-machine containers. With that capability, ManageIQ’s applications can perform network, host and virtual instance inventory as well as manage configurations of virtual servers. The product ships as a virtual appliance and performs a discovery of the environment using industry standards to collect data.

New features in the Insight application include expanded discovery capabilities to support VLANs, LUNs, additional virtual appliances and more details around virtual machine resources including snapshots. The application also now performs baselining and drift comparison features to make IT managers aware early on of changes to the virtual infrastructure. New relationship and dependency mapping features will show how virtual machines, hosts, clusters, network and storage components (among others) interconnect and enable speedier problem resolution, ManageIQ says.

Denise Dubie is senior editor with Network World.