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Microsoft Releases OMS Add-On for System Center

Microsoft last week released the Operations Management Suite (OMS) add-on for its System Center product, enabling IT organizations to use the cloud-based OMS as an extension to their existing System Center management implementations.

OMS, which Microsoft launched during its Ignite conference in May, is aimed at letting organizations that don't use System Center to administer workloads running on Microsoft Azure, Windows Server, Amazon Web Services, Linux, VMware and OpenStack.

"The OMS add-on provides System Center customers access to the full suite of OMS solutions at one low cost," Microsoft said in a blog post. "For every System Center Standard or Datacenter license you own with Software Assurance, you will be able to purchase a corresponding Microsoft Operations Management Suite add-on for access to allocated solutions that enable you to extend your datacenter, quickly enable hybrid cloud scenarios, and take advantage of cloud bursting, migration and dev/test scenarios."

According to Microsoft, OMS for System Center Standard Edition is priced at $60 per month for two virtual machines (VMs), though with an annual commitment the cost is $36 a month for those signing up by year's end.

If purchasing OMS separately without System Center, the service costs $83 per month, Microsoft said. The company posted a price list, noting that for each System Center license owned, customers can purchase a corresponding OMS add-on.

Microsoft also said it's now looking to extend its use of Azure for backup and recovery to a broader base of customers, including small and medium businesses (SMBs), by offering its Azure Site Recovery service with OMS. The company is extending its Azure Backup offering with a new System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) agent, which is available for download.

Also new is Azure Backup for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) VMs, which Microsoft says provides access to multi-disk storage and PowerShell automation, and a new Azure Backup management console.

About the Author

Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.