Shavlik Technologies announced the availability of Shavlik NetChk Protect 6.5. Shavlik NetChk Protect 6.5 is a virtual machine management solution that provides continuous patch assessment and remediation of your complete virtual world, including Offline Virtual Images.

Adoption of virtualization technology is driven by improved use of physical servers; "green IT" via reduced power consumption and reduced rack space; lower maintenance costs; simplified system backup; improving system availability and disaster recovery; and centralized software management. But the cost savings from a virtualization strategy quickly disappear if manual processes are utilized to maintain required configuration and patch levels of virtual systems.

"Simplification and automation of security and compliance management in virtualized environments is essential to address the growth of virtual machines. According to Gartner, by 2010, unmanaged VMs will be as significant an issue to enterprise as unmanaged devices were in 2007," said Mark Shavlik, CEO, Shavlik Technologies. "Shavlik's market leading agentless technology makes it uniquely capable of reaching and securing offline virtual images, thereby allowing customers to simplify the entire security management process. This technology edge is why VMware selected Shavlik to license and integrate into its own solutions offering. Now we are bringing our full solution into our main product line, a key to the continued simplification of complex network security solutions we provide to our customers."

NetChk Protect 6.5 extends Shavlik's Any Patch/Any Where assessment technology to offline virtual images and fully automates continuous patch assessment and deployment which cuts costs and eases time constraints on overburdened IT staff. NetChk Protect 6.5 provides more powerful security through continuous identification and remediation of security gaps and redundant overlaps.