VKernel on April 22 launched a global partner program that will offer resellers a way to expand their virtualization and systems management practice.

The VKernel Virtual Appliance Suite software is a set of plug-and-play virtual appliances that address specific systems management problems within VMware virtual server environments, said Bill Brown, director of channel sales at VKernel. 

VKernel virtual appliances provide visibility into the capacity and resource consumption of each virtual machine a customer is running, and each VKernel virtual appliance is targeted to find and analyze specific customer pain points, Brown explained, including cost visibility, capacity and implementing chargeback. 

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"We are helping people see what's going on inside their virtual deployments. People are spending millions of dollars on virtualization and they are flying blind," Brown said, without a way to view and analyze performance, efficiency and cost. Using VKernel's virtual appliances, partners can deliver a clear view to customers into VMware's virtual center, as well as analyze and print out comprehensive views of their virtual deployment, including memory usage, storage capacity, CPU performance and network connection status and performance, Brown said.

Brown said that the virtual appliances are easily installed and can be up and running within an hour.  The appliances allow for up to 30 days of history on a customer's virtual environment deployment, and not only give partners the ability to show customers analytics of cost savings and ROI, but also can allow them to predict future problems, inefficiencies and bottlenecks.

"By analyzing capacity and performance, a partner could say to a customer, 'In 17 days, you are going to discover a capacity bottleneck because you are growing your data and increasing capacity in this specific area,'" Brown said.

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The company is targeting skilled solution providers with experience in the data center, networking and virtualization space.  He said that VKernel is just one aspect of a large virtualization ecosystem of products and services that contribute to a deployment, including storage, servers, hardware and software from vendors such as VMware.  Brown said that VKernel planned to unveil eight to 12 more virtual appliances over the next 12 to 14 months, and that partners could expect lucrative opportunities to address customer pain points as each virtual appliance was ready.

Brown said while some rudimentary analytics and reporting capabilities are available through VMware, VKernel's virtual appliances deliver systems management information through a single dashboard, simplifying analysis and reporting.

The multi-tiered VKernel Global Partner Program offers sales and marketing support, on-site sales and technical training, demonstration software and deal registration.  All partners have access to the VKernel Partner Portal.

VKernel and VMware offer a jointly developed solution acceleration kit that details how partners can build additional services around VKernel solutions.  VMware has rolled the acceleration kit out to more than 600 worldwide VMware Authorized Consultants, according to VKernel.  

Brown said VKernel already has 15 channel partners around the globe, and he said he believes that number will grow exponentially over the next few months.