Microsoft System Center Alliance - overview
As I mentioned in my earlier post – I will dedicate a few posts to describing the System Center Alliance and how it relates to you and why you should care – both as a customer, and as a development partner.
The System Center Alliance was announced in Barcelona, Spain in November 2007 at TechEd IT Forum as part of the launch activities for the current generation of System Center products.
Today Microsoft also launched the System Center Alliance program, which establishes an online community to help technology partners more easily collaborate on and create offerings that extend the management capabilities of System Center solutions to Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications and platforms. It also provides customers with a diverse directory of offerings that can help them reduce their overall IT management costs, improve application availability and enhance service delivery.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/nov07/11-12DesktopDatacenterPR.mspx
The goal of this partner program is simple. To create, nurture and grow a strong partner eco-system around System Center products. Our intent is that this Microsoft and partner community will deliver the best set of management solutions in the industry.
So why does this matter?
For customers – it means that your investment in System Center products is safe. You can see that partners are integrating and extending System Center Configuration Manager; adding new features, extending its reach into new areas. Other partners are providing Management Packs for Systems Center Operations Manager – allowing you to get pro-active health, status and remediation for your business critical IT infrastructure. It means that Microsoft is working with your hardware partner to better enable Windows Server and Windows Vista deployment, management and health on their hardware platforms.
For partners – it provides access to knowledge and technologies to fast-track your integration. It allows you to build on the great success and widely deployed platform that is Systems Center. As a partner you can focus on innovation rather than ‘plumbing’.
In my next post I will describe the benefits and interactions with a partner in more detail. I hope this gives partners renewed energy to engage; for IT Pros and customers I hope it is both enlightening and informative.
For more information on the System Center Alliance visit http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/alliance-program-overview.aspx
