Amazon cloud watcher Newvem now watches Azure too

Newvem made its name monitoring your Amazon Web Services workloads and recommending where you can extract savings with another instance type or where you need to close security gaps. Now it’s adding analagous services for Microsoft Window Azure as well.

The theory behind tools like these is basically this: sure, public cloud computing is billed as cheap, but too often it turns into a wasteland of dormant instances and other fallow resources. So as inexpensive as it can be, it’s not necessarily efficient or as cheap as it could be. Companies like Newvem, Cloudability, Cloudyn, CloudVertical et al say they can help you optimize all that and save more.

Newvem for Windows Azure covers many of the same core usage and cost metrics as the AWS version. A “heat map” helps users visualize their workloads as they move from on-premise implementations to the cloud, according to Newvem VP of marketing Cameron Peron. The free beta is available now to all Azure users. Newvem’s AWS version started out free as well, and a base level of capabilities remain free, but as of late last year, the company started charging for higher-level services.

Newvem said it sees Azure — which launched its AWS-like Infrastructure-as-a-Service  capabilities last month — gaining traction.

“The size of the Azure installed base is probably one of [Microsoft’s] best-kept secrets,” Perron noted. Well, not that secret since Microsoft recently said Azure is a $ 1 billion-a-year business – a claim that some find difficult to swallow. Newvem would not comment when asked if Microsoft helped fund its Azure tool, but given that Microsoft wants to build the Azure ecosystem and compete better with AWS (as well as the spanking new Google Compute Engine), I’d say it’s a safe bet.

It’s also true that companies like Newvem, which built services around AWS, have been perplexed to see AWS adding richer and deeper monitoring and management services like Trusted Advisor. Given that, it makes sense that these companies offer multi-cloud capabilities.

Newvem for Azure

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