As more performance management suite vendors get snatched up by heavyweights such as Computer Associates, HP and IBM, more point product vendors are ratcheting up their network optimization tools to provide a comprehensive suite of capabilities.

NetQoS this week is adding capabilities to its product portfolio that will enable customers using more than one of its products (SuperAgent, ReporterAnalyzer and NetVoyant) to tap data and reports from a single portal interface called Performance Center.

Performance Center is a software script that NetQoS customers can install on a server running its software or on a separate dedicated server. The script uses Web services to present data collected by NetQoS products in a Web-based management interface.

"Performance Center acts as an umbrella for the three products and does the integration work among them for the customers," says Steve Fulton, senior product manager at NetQoS. "It gives them the flexibility to use any of the network and application performance or traffic data."

Also this week, NetQoS says it will make available a free polling tool that will report back on server performance statistics such as CPU, memory and disk usage. The tool would help customers augment the data they already collect with NetQoS products, the company says.

NetQoS Performance Center will be included with other NetQoS products at no additional cost.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.