Are you getting the most out of your Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Azure-based applications? A new addition to the Quest Software Foglight application performance management (APM) portfolio will help IT administrators monitor the performance of Azure-based apps.

Foglight for Windows Azure Applications has entered its beta-testing phase. With cloud application monitoring becoming increasingly more important to make sure apps are functioning at the level they need to be at, Quest is promising a variety of features in this latest incarnation of Foglight, including:

As part as application performance management goes, Quest is longtime provider of APM software, having been providing APM solutions for the last two decades. A variety of versions of Foglight are available, but this marks Quest’s first real foray into monitoring specifically for cloud-based applications.

Steve Rosenberg, vice president and general manager of performance monitoring at Quest Software, noted in a prepared statement that the Foglight product for Windows Azure applications monitoring gives IT organizations “the ability for extremely rapid and cost-effective application delivery.”

Those in the channel that support customers’ Azure-based apps should be able to find opportunities to make good on SLAs and proactively solve any potential bottlenecks or performance problems. Combined with other Foglight monitoring tools, partners will be able to monitor customers’ different systems and provide extra value in their service offerings.