Coleman said CA has "a very good reputation for integration" of tools such as ASM. "You can still call them up and discuss issues," he said. Coleman also said his staff favors using SQL Server over Ingres, although providing for database server hardware has been an additional expense, he said.

Documenting what task is running on a virtual server would be nearly impossible because a given task 'might not be there tomorrow,' he said. Daley said that ASM could help IT staffers know when a mission-critical application begins to fail so that additional memory or processing power could be found on another virtual server.

Rich Ptak, an analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates in Amherst, N.H., said CA might be unique in offering such a complete package of capabilities in a single tool, but other management vendors such as IBM's Tivoli Software unit, HP and BMC Software Inc. will probably compete. "A lot of folks in IT assumed that just implementing virtualization was going to solve all their problems, when, in fact, it introduces the need for even more management" software, he said.

Ptak said that if an IT shop is planning to use only one virtualization vendor, the ASM product wouldn't make sense. Conversely, an IT group might decide to standardize on one virtualization vendor to avoid the need for CA's ASM product, which also requires installing Network Systems Management.

Market research company IDC is predicting an acceleration in IT shops that use several virtualization products for next year, said Stephen Elliot, an IDC analyst. He advised that IT managers make purchases of management software a priority in coming budgets.