Data center intelligence provider Splunk has launched version 3.1 of its operational information system, Splunk App for VMware.

The system aims to give data center managers complete operational visibility into virtualized environments, claimed the vendor.

New features in the system include 200 pre-configured reports and a built-in correlation with storage systems, that promises to give data center operations managers a penetrative insight into data stored on NetApp’s ONTAP system.

The vendor claimed the app gives data center managers ‘the ability to instantly identify outliers for real-time triage’.

This, said Matt Davies, Splunk’s director of product marketing, means that information can be instantly correlated and given context, so that thousands of events can be categorized and prioritized in order of their urgency.

Important issues about failures of vital resources, such as memory, CPU or disk can be identified sooner and tackled more rapidly, said Davies.

“If you run a modern data center you need holistic visibility,” said Davies.

This is an increasingly critical issue as data centers evolve to use hybrid cloud computing models, he said.

The mix of on-premise, virtualization, hosted and cloud applications and infrastructure will present complicate the task of fine tuning all the machinery of a modern IT infrastructure.

This presents massive challenges to any data center operator’s ability to meet service level agreements (SLAs)” said Davies.

“Virtualization of data alone doesn’t give a data center manager or IT Operations professional all the data they need to ensure the right quality of service, ensure SLAs and get a view of operational intelligence,” said Davies.

According to a joint Splunk/Quocirca study, 44% of IT professionals confessed they do not have a comprehensive view of operational intelligence.

As VMware-based enterprise clouds transform traditional data centers, the need for operational visibility across the applications and the IT infrastructure is in danger of being overlooked, said Leena Joshi, senior director of infrastructure operations marketing, Splunk.

The new version of Splunk for VMware will rectify this, claimed Davies, with new management applications such as: operational Performance Insights (with 200 customizable reports designed to spot underperforming hosts); advanced mapping visualizations and NetApp and Storage Correlations.