VKernel is offering a free, lightweight tool for evaluating the capacity management of your VMware virtual machines. It's an example of what you can do to get started in intelligent virtual machine management without committing to a big management framework and thousands of dollars of expense.VKernel produces a suite of system management virtual appliances that plug and play in VMware ESX Server and Microsoft Hyper-V environments. The Portsmouth, N.H., company launched its first capacity management appliance in March 2008, was named by Gartner as a "Cool vendor in server virtualization" the same month, and has since been augmenting the suite.

The free capacity tool is Capacity View, which can identify VM's that need more CPU and memory or those with too much allocated CPU and memory. It can indicate if the virtual machines on a given server are experiencing wait times as they seek access to I/O devices. Capacity View also offers an estimate of how many more VMs can be spun up on a given server as it hosts an existing set.

It's available for free download at http://www.vkernel.com/pages/register-capacity-view.

There are of course follow on tools, such as Capacity Analyzer or Chargeback, for annual subscriptions of $139 per server socket. But much can be learned about virtual machine management before committing to major purchases. VKernel has additional free tools available on its Web site.

Alex Bakman, the founder and CEO of VKernel, is the former founder of Ecora Software, a firm with 3,500 customers for its automated configuration audit tools, and CleverSoft, sold to Candle Corp.

InformationWeek SMB's Virtualization How-To Center cuts through the hype to explain and explore the basics of virtualization and how to implement it. Download reports to help guide your plans. Check it out now.