Operations Manager 2007 & Essentials 2007 Deliver Support for Windows Server 2008

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).

• Hotfixes for Operations Manager 2007 and Essentials 2007 are covered in two KB articles:
• KB953141 – The main article for the Operations Manager 2007 and Essentials 2007 support with Windows Server 2008, discussing known issues, caveats, and hotfix requirements (with links to all relevant information).
• KB954049 – includes  the whole set of hotfixes required for Operations Manager 2007 SP1 and Essentials 2007 SP1 to run on Windows Server 2008
  
• Hotfixes to Windows Server 2008.
• There are 4 hotfixes (KB952664, KB953290, KB951327, KB951116) that are now available that should be applied to Windows Server 2008 servers where Operations Manager or MOM 2005 are (or will be) installed.

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:

• Available today: BaseOS, Group Policy, Application Server, and Terminal Services and Key Management Services.
• Q3 CY2008: Rights Management Services (RMS), Windows Deployment Services, Fax Server, Print Server, Cluster Services (MSCS)*, DNS, DHCP, ADFS, Certificate Services, DFS-R, DFS-N, Active Directory, IIS, Hyper-V, Network Load Balancing (NLB)
• Q4 CY2008:  Streaming Media Services, Sub-system for Unix Applications, ADAM, Network Access Protection (NAP)

* 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