Somewhere between the physical and the virtual
More announcements ...
The System Center Operations Manager team is excited to announce support of Windows Server 2008 by Operations Manager 2007 SP1 and Essentials 2007 SP1. This enables both Operations Manager 2007 and Essentials 2007 to successfully monitor, as well as be installed upon, the Windows Server 2008 platform.
Installing the core Operations Manager and Essentials roles, and their agents, on Windows Server 2008: Supported scenarios are as shown in the below table and will require installation of new hotfixes for Windows Server 2008, Operations Manager 2007 SP1 and/or Essentials 2007 SP1.
Details on the hotfixes:
The following hotfixes are all required to support both the installation of Operations Manager 2007 roles and Essentials 2007 on a WS08 platform, as well as install the Operations Manager agent on a WS08 platform, (i.e., to monitor that server and its workloads).
Note: All hotfixes are initially delivered in English-only. Localization of these fixes (where required) will take approximately 2 additional weeks.
Windows Server 2008 Management Packs:
Below is the targeted schedule for new management packs that will be made available through the System Center Catalog for both Ops Mgr 2007 and Essentials 2007. Effectively, 24 MPs are in various stages of development for monitoring WS08, and are targeted to become available at the following times:
* Note that this MP may be delayed, as it requires a hotfix for Windows Server 2008
Please refer to the updated documentation on TechNet for additional information on supported configurations, and more!
Best regards,
Sacha Dawes Sr. Technical Product Manager System Center
Great news for those of you looking for solutions to help better manage your virtual machines while they're offline, the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool Solution Accelerator has released to the web.
Information on it can be found at this link.
Some brief info on it includes:
The increasing use of virtual machines—for purposes ranging from support of older operating system environments to power savings—has created new challenges for IT. In particular, virtual machines may be left offline (stored in a non-operating state) for extended periods of time, which conserves resources when the server capacities of the virtual machines are not needed or frees up physical computing resources for other purposes. However, offline machines do not automatically receive operating system, antivirus, or application updates that would keep them compliant with current IT policy. An out-of-date virtual machine may pose a risk to the IT environment. If deployed and started, the out-of-date virtual machine might be vulnerable to attack or could be capable of attacking other network resources. Therefore, IT groups must take measures to ensure that offline virtual machines remain up-to-date and compliant. At present, these measures involve temporarily bringing the virtual machine online, applying the necessary updates, and then storing it again. In the future, image updating solutions may be able to update virtual machines while they remain offline. Until such solutions become available, the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool, a Solution Accelerator from Microsoft, provides a way to automate the process of updating virtual machines. This tool is now available as a free download from the Microsoft® Download Center.
The increasing use of virtual machines—for purposes ranging from support of older operating system environments to power savings—has created new challenges for IT.
In particular, virtual machines may be left offline (stored in a non-operating state) for extended periods of time, which conserves resources when the server capacities of the virtual machines are not needed or frees up physical computing resources for other purposes.
However, offline machines do not automatically receive operating system, antivirus, or application updates that would keep them compliant with current IT policy. An out-of-date virtual machine may pose a risk to the IT environment. If deployed and started, the out-of-date virtual machine might be vulnerable to attack or could be capable of attacking other network resources.
Therefore, IT groups must take measures to ensure that offline virtual machines remain up-to-date and compliant. At present, these measures involve temporarily bringing the virtual machine online, applying the necessary updates, and then storing it again.
In the future, image updating solutions may be able to update virtual machines while they remain offline. Until such solutions become available, the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool, a Solution Accelerator from Microsoft, provides a way to automate the process of updating virtual machines. This tool is now available as a free download from the Microsoft® Download Center.
Check it out and enjoy - Larry
Hello – I wanted to provide a quick update on some changes we have coming regarding the System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) later this year. In Q4 of 2008, we’re excited to be providing customers with additional value and functionality in the SMSE by releasing the next version of our VMM software, VMM 2008. One thing that’s new with the release of VMM 2008, is that we’ll be making it available to customers and partners as a standalone product; VMM 2007 was only available as part of the SMSE. While the feedback from customers on the synergy of the products in the SMSE has been exciting over the last 8 months, we also wanted to offer customers the choice of VMM 2008 standalone as well, as we do with the other products in the System Center family including Configuration Manager 2007, Operations Manager 2007 and Data Protection Manager 2007.
As far as how we’ll offer VMM 2008 standalone in Q4 of 2008, it will follow the licensing model set forward by the SMSE. It will be sold as a per-device enterprise server management license (ML) and will include rights to the management server. Because we’ll be selling the VMM 2008 enterprise server ML on a per-device basis, which makes sense in the context of virtualization, we’ll be targeting a price which will be approximately 10-15% less than the SMSE at that time it’s generally available. Additionally, because of the new value and functionality being added to the various System Center offerings over the next year, including VMM, Operations Manager and Configuration Manager, we will be implementing a price increase to the SMSE of approximately 10-15% in the same time frame. We’re still working on the specifics regarding the pricing and licensing of VMM 2008 and the SMSE and we’ll have further details to share in early August.
It should be noted that while we fully support customers’ and partners’ desire for choice, we expect strong continued momentum with SMSE. Customers who choose the SMSE receive the benefits of a holistic management experience across their physical and virtual IT infrastructures. Some of the benefits customers will experience with the wholly managed virtualized environment include managing virtual machines, with capabilities such as intelligent placement and monitoring; automated VM patching; and data protection/ disaster recovery. For example, VMM2008 has a powerful new feature called Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) which is only available when implemented in conjunction with Operations Manager 2007 and provides deep insight into all up virtual environment performance.
Using deep knowledge of the IT environment including operating systems, applications and hardware, Operations Manager identifies opportunities for more efficient physical and virtual resource allocation and generates “PRO tips” within the Virtual Machine Manager console. Administrators can implement these PRO tips and dynamically optimize their data center based upon pre-defined policies and the real-time, changing demands of users. When used in conjunction with the broad System Center management suite, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 enables customers to effectively manage both their virtualized and physical servers and applications across their desktops and data centers with a single set of consistent, compatible tools.
We look forward to providing our customers and partners with expanded choices. We’re also thrilled with the enthusiastic reaction to the SMSE that we’ve seen since it was released 8 months ago. In the end we believe that as customers look for a broad solution for managing their physical and virtual IT infrastructure and assets the System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise will be the solution of choice.
Thanks - Diane Prescott, Product Manager, System Center