News
Microsoft Ships Beta of Operations Manager 2007
At its annual TechEd conference in Boston Tuesday, Microsoft announced the
beginning of the beta test cycle for System Center Operations Manager 2007,
an update to Microsoft Operations Manager 2005.
In a move to make Windows Vista adoption more fluid, the company also announced
the beta availability of the Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 Operating
System Deployment Feature Pack update, which adds support for the 64-bit version
of Windows XP and the Windows Vista operating systems.
"With this update, we hope to accelerate customers' deployment
of both operating systems so they can more quickly benefit from new performance
and productivity enhancements," Felicity McGourty, director of product
marketing in the Windows and Enterprise Management Division, said in a prepared
statement.
Finally, Microsoft also announced it has released SMS 2003 R2 to manufacturing.
SMS 2003 R2 includes a new vulnerability assessment capability.
As part of a move to unify its systems management products into a single line,
the company rebranded Microsoft Operations Manager to System Center Operations
Manager 2007, and Systems Management Server to System Center Configuration Manager
2007 in late
April.
The upcoming release of Operations Manager 2007 will herald the first time
the product has taken advantage of Microsoft's System Definition Model
(SDM). Initially rolled out in 2003, SDM is part of Microsoft's Dynamic
Systems Initiative.
Documents on Microsoft's Web site define SDM as "a model that is
used to create definitions of distributed systems...[which are] a set of
related software and hardware resources working together to accomplish a common
function [such as with] multi-tier line-of-business (LOB) applications."
Basically, using SDM lets businesses create a live blueprint of an entire distributed
system.
Operations Manager 2007 also aims to deliver service-oriented management capabilities
for Exchange Server, SharePoint technologies, Active Directory and LOB applications
built on SQL Server 2005. The company is also extending the product beyond server
management to provide proactive monitoring of Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows
XP client environments, the company said in a statement.
When used in conjunction with SMS 2003, the updated OS Deployment Feature Pack
will let administrators capture images in Microsoft's new Windows Imaging
(WIM) format and enable them to customize and manage settings for individual
deployments.
The final version of the feature pack is scheduled for release in August as
is SMS 2003 R2. Microsoft expects to release Operations Manager 2007 to manufacturing
in the fourth quarter.
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.