For the past 2 weeks, the System Center online beta service has been up and running, to the great delight and excitement of the System Center Online team.  We have received hundreds of applications for participation in this beta, and things are looking good!  A good number of beta participants have begun testing the service, deployed their clients to test machines, and the feedback has started to flow.  Beta participants have found a few interesting bugs and issues which is great, and the SC Online team is busy reviewing what customers have found.

Overall, the response to this beta has been quite positive.  Even though not all planned functionality is available yet, beta participants have been playing with the bits, trying out the Updates workspace, protecting their machines with Anti-malware, and reviewing software and hardware inventory reports collected from their PCs. Participants have been impressed that the Silverlight User Interface looks nice and polished for such an early release.

If you are interested in participating in the this beta, we still have some room!  We are looking for IT Pros located in North America, who can commit to deploying to at least 5 or more machines, and are willing to participate in weekly feedback sessions, post their comments and feedback on the Microsoft Connect site. To apply to be part of this beta, please visit the System Center Online Connect site and complete the nomination survey (you may have to register on Connect if you haven’t already done so).

The System Center Online team has been working hard in preparation for its next beta release of System Center Online Desktop Manager, expected in the fall of this year.  This exclusive beta will only be available to a select number of customers.  Our last beta was only offered to a small audience and resulted in a lot of great feedback from the customers who participated.  This time we are widening the scope to include a few hundred customers.  Here's what will be included in the upcoming release:

• Updates Management Workload:  Manage the Microsoft updates from a web-based console.  Review available updates, choose updates and deploy to selected computers or groups of computers.  Imagine WSUS from the cloud.
• Policy Workload: Provides the ability to configure operational settings of the Windows Update and Anti-Malware agents installed on the client computers. 
• Anti-malware Workload: Review anti-malware, anti-virus status and remedial actions from the SCODM console.  Ensure managed computers have up-to-date signatures.
• Assets Workload: Collect detailed hardware and software inventory on managed computers. View this information in reports.  Use the License reconciliation feature to load your Microsoft volume license agreement information and compare installed application quantities with licensed quantities.
• Alerts Workload: Helps you quickly and easily find problems (or potential) on your computers. You can also get help on how to solve the problem or how to start troubleshooting.

More workloads will be offered in later beta releases, expected in Spring 2010.  More information on the full SCODM service can be found in my previous blog post.

We are looking for customers who are interested in participating in the fall beta!  If you are an IT Pro who manages an IT environment and are interested in participation, we'd like to hear from you.  Here's what we are looking for in our beta participants:

• Active involvement in discussion groups, good feedback and bug reporting
• Ability to deploy to a number of test PCs (preferably 5 or more)
• Test on a variety of browsers, Windows operating systems, and PC architectures.
• Ability to run through all the documented core scenarios and provide feedback

If you can commit to these requirements, please visit our Connect site and complete the nomination questionnaire (you may need to register on Connect before accessing the questionnaire).  In October, we will be reviewing all applicants and selecting the most suitable candidates.  Selected participants will be notified by email by the end of October.

We look forward to your active participation!

You may be asking yourself: What is System Center Online Desktop Manager?  Those of you who are familiar with Microsoft System Center know there are a lot of products under this label, all aimed at making the management of your corporate IT environment easier, more cost effective, and more efficient. System Center Online DM is no exception.  It is a new, yet-to-be released, IT management solution that was announced at the Microsoft Management Summit this past April in Las Vegas. 

System Center Online DM differs significantly from other System Center products in that it is an online service, hosted by Microsoft, that will allow you to manage PCs without any on-premise infrastructure. It will include 'workloads', such as:

• Deploy and manage Windows Updates,
• Protect your PCs from malware,
• Perform detailed software/hardware inventories and let you manage your Microsoft licenses,
• Monitor events on your PCs,
• Deploy/manage policy, 
• Allow you to remotely share user's desktops to assist in support calls.

We are we now?  The System Center Online DM team has just completed a small closed beta, and the next beta is scheduled for this fall.  The fall beta will also be by invitation only, and you can apply to participate by going here.  Later, there will be a public beta that will include all the planned functionality for the v.1 release.

This blog will serve to document SCODM, as we prgoress through to its availability, and beyond.  True to an online service, the goal is to keep a dynamic approach, and constantly introduce new functionality into the service.  Stay tuned!