March 18, 2003
(IDG News Service)
Laying out a road map for enterprise systems management at its second annual Microsoft Management Summit, Microsoft Corp. today discussed plans for a new suite integrating several of its management software products.
The first release of Microsoft System Center will bundle two products: Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2004 and Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003. But with MOM 2004 not due until mid-2004, System Center's arrival remains distant.
The centerpiece of the Microsoft summit in Las Vegas is the company's recently announced "Dynamic Systems Initiative," a project that aims at reducing data center complexity by increasing the self-descriptive capabilities of applications (see story).
The creation of System Center is part of that same vision for increasing simplicity and flexibility, said David Hamilton, director of Microsoft's Enterprise Management Division. "We're heading toward delivering one unified enterprise management solution. This is the first deliverable of that multiyear road map," he said.
SMS 2003 is a tool for managing configurations of Windows desktop and server machines. In beta testing now and scheduled for a September release, the software updates Microsoft's SMS 2.0 product. Handling of mobile devices was one area targeted in the overhaul, with support for devices running Windows CE added to SMS 2003, according to Microsoft officials.
Another new feature is software metering. SMS 2003 can inventory which applications are installed on managed machines and track their usage, Hamilton said. "This was delivered in direct response to feedback from customers," he said. "Everyone is trying to avoid shelfware and better understand their software inventory."
The second piece of System Center, MOM 2004, updates Microsoft's MOM 2000 performance management software. In addition to new features such as graphical system views and enhanced reporting tools, the software will be tailored for much faster deployment, cutting start-up time from weeks to hours, Hamilton said.
Once MOM 2004 and SMS 2003 are released, Microsoft will focus on System Center, which will feature tight integration between the two products, officials said.
"We'll be utilizing the [products'] data warehousing capabilities to provide consistent data about systems," Hamilton said. "You might be deploying security patches on Windows servers and monitoring your Exchange server, and you'll probably want to correlate information on those. So we'll enable that."
Pricing for System Center, MOM 2004 and SMS 2003 hasn't yet been determined, said Microsoft.