1. A computer system containing at least one processor for monitoring one or more virtual machines in a cloud computing environment, the computer system comprising: a baseline module of a virtual machine executing on a host computer, the baseline module configured to: 1) monitor performance of software of the virtual machine executing on the host computer to collect software information, 2) monitor performance of hardware components of the host computer to collect hardware information, and 3) create a plurality of machine readable baseline files based on the collected software information and hardware information; and a benchmark module, executing on a storage and processing computer separate from the host computer, the benchmark module configured to: 1) comparatively analyze at least two of the plurality of machine readable baseline files to determine differences in the software information between the at least two machine readable baseline files, 2) determine differences in the hardware information between the at least two machine readable baseline files, and 3) generate a plurality of benchmark reports based on the determined differences; a trends module, executing on the storage and processing computer separate from the host computer, the trends module configured to: 1) comparatively analyze the plurality of benchmark reports by performing a statistical analysis of the differences in software information and the differences in hardware information over a period of time, and 2) generate at least one user readable trends report based on the comparative analysis of benchmark reports; and a user actions module, the user actions module configured to provide at least one of the plurality of benchmark reports to a user and to display a dynamic input form to the user when the provided at least one benchmark report indicates at least one threat to the cloud computing environment, wherein the dynamic input form enables the user to address the at least one threat.