Fast-growing storage startup PernixData Inc. is marking one of its biggest product updates since hitting the scene three years ago with the release of a new monitoring service that installs directly in the hypervisor kernel. That promises to give administrators unprecedented visibility into their VMware Inc. environments.

Operating at roughly the same level of abstraction as the virtual machines in which a company’s workloads are deployed enables Architect, as the software is called, to put the underlying storage devices in the context of the applications they power. PernixData says that the wider perspective can help its customers become more proactive in how they adjust to operational changes.

Architect uses operational logs from the environment in which it’s deployed and the startup’s own database to produce custom suggestions on how capacity should be allocated to optimally accommodate new applications, which provides a more accurate alternative to manual estimation. It’s faster as well, which can shorten such projects considerably.

Automating storage planning also has the no less important benefit of freeing up administrators to spend their time on more pressing matters, such as ensuring all virtual machines are working as expecting. PernixData says that its new monitoring software can help with that, too, automatically bringing up lagging instances in the visual interface where built-in filtering capabilities can be used isolate the root cause.

Architect complements the predictive maintenance feature bundled into the new iteration of its flagship FVP clustered caching software that is rolling out in conjunction, which is designed to help administrators find operational problems before they can cause serious disruption. But the startup says that the software can also be deployed independently, which extends the appeal beyond its limited customer base to the entirety of the vast VMware user community.

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