Trying to appeal to network operators, Midokura has added tools to enrich the OpenStack cloud by increasing visibility into virtual networks.

The enhancements, going under the name MEM Insights, are included in release 5.0 of Midokura Enterprise MidoNet (MEM), which was launched today. Note that that's the commercial version of MidoNet, not the version Midokura offers for free.

Built on open source technologies, the tools are meant to help operators track the state of the virtual network, providing analytics for the network overlays that MidoNet creates.

"In OpenStack itself, there's not a lot in this direction," says Susan Wu, director of technical marketing. OpenStack Telemetry is a start but focuses on traditional metrics such as CPU usage, rather than providing "full visibility into network connections," she says.

Visibility has become a hot topic in networking, not only for monitoring performance but for security as well.

Midokura hopes to claim an edge because it has experience operating its own data centers, in Barcelona and Tokyo. The latter is used for cloud-based training and for running Midokura's back-office work; Midokura also uses its cloud to let customers test-drive virtual infrastructure.

Among the MEM Insights features is the ability to study network usage by tenant, which could be useful in network-as-a-service scenarios. MEM Insights also includes traffic counters that monitor virtual-network bandwidth and track the load on virtual objects.

Midokura is also extending MidoNet's flow-tracing feature to create a historical record, so operators can plumb a database to see the past behavior of virtual routers and other network elements.

On the security front, MEM Insights includes a way to mirror any device, such as a port or a router, onto a security system, such as a firewall or intrusion prevention system.