Microsoft wraps up MOM 2005 management tool

IDG News Service - Microsoft Corp. today said it has finished work on Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, a major update to its MOM 2000 performance management software.
Along with MOM 2005, Microsoft also announced MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition, previously called MOM 2005 Express. This new addition to the Microsoft management product lineup was announced in March and is pitched as a less expensive product for organizations with between four and 10 servers, requiring only simple monitoring of Microsoft Windows Server environments.
The management products are part of Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative, a plan for reducing IT complexity by improving software manageability. Microsoft has repeatedly cited an Accenture Ltd. study that shows IT professionals spend up to 70% of their time managing systems. The vendor aims to bring that down to 55% by automating management tasks.
Microsoft has overhauled pricing and licensing for MOM with the 2005 edition. Customers can buy a license for their central server for $729 and so-called Operations Management Licenses for each managed server. A five-pack of OMLs is priced at $2,689. MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition is priced at $499. This is estimated retail pricing, Microsoft said.
For MOM 2000, released in 2001, Microsoft offers a $349-per-processor base license for the MOM server. Managed servers also require the $349-per-processor base license plus a $349-per-processor management pack to monitor a specific server or Windows service, such as Exchange or Active Directory. With MOM 2005, management pack licenses are part of the OML.
MOM users who purchased upgrade rights can trade up their licenses. Each MOM 2000 base license and each MOM 2000 management pack license is upgradable to either a single MOM 2005 server license or a single MOM 2005 OML, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.
"On average, most of our customers have two-processor servers. Trading in two per-processor licenses will net them two OMLs, which means that they will now be able to manage twice the number of servers with the same licenses as before," the spokeswoman said.
MOM 2005 and the Workgroup Edition should be available within six weeks, the typical time it takes to get a product to market after announcing release to manufacturing.
In addition to new features such as a graphical systems views and enhanced reporting tools, MOM 2005 has been designed to be easier to deploy than its predecessor, Microsoft said. The release will also come with updated management packs and introduce new packs designed to monitor Web services.
"It is a dramatic improvement over MOM 2000," David Hamilton, director of Microsoft's Enterprise Management division, said in