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Investing in Systems and Service Management
Learn about Microsoft's plans to develop a comprehensive systems- and service-management solution.
by Lynne Harvey Zawada
Posted November 13, 2003
Microsoft wants to play a larger role in managing the large enterprise datacenter. Next year systems and service management will be key areas of investment for Microsoft as it attempts to penetrate the systems- and data-management space and provide solutions to help make corporate datacenters more self-managing and cost-effective. Microsoft will unify its existing service-management tools and significantly revise its systems-management products to meet its Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), a strategic and architectural framework for metadata management and Web services. It will also develop partnerships with leading Web service management companies and flesh out Visual Studio .NET with applications development and modeling tools that will leverage its own XML-based metadata standards and enable application programmers to provide information that helps the administration of an application once it is deployed. In doing so, Microsoft eventually will be able to compete with IBM and HP, who've made datacenter management and on-demand utility computing a core part of their own Web services offerings.
With a net income of $2.7 billion and more than $46 billion in cash and equivalents (as of fall 2003), Microsoft casts a large shadow in a market that complements its operating system product line. Yet the general perception seems to be that corporate datacenter infrastructure remains separate from the enterprise software domain. Part of this perception stems from data warehousing and data modeling and analysis practices that relied on high-end, centralized computing platforms rather than a distributed computing solution. For many CIOs, this mindset has changed considerably over the past several years, especially with the resurgence of grid and utility computing as an option. Most of all, Web services make it possible to unify access to disparate systems and applications. However, the distributed and dynamic nature of a Web services environment also requires advanced systems- and data-management capabilities—hence the need for better systems- and data-management infrastructure.
Notwithstanding, Microsoft recognized this trend and quickly took steps to beef up its systems and data management R&D efforts. Last year it hired several executives to head up development. Among them were Kirill Tatarinov, the former CTO of BMC Software, to lead its Management Business Group; Anders Vinberg, the former vice president of research and development at Computer Associates (CA) and the architect of the CA Unicenter; and Brad Anderson, the former vice president and general manager of Novell's Content and Applications Management Services group, who was hired as the general manager of its Systems Management Server (SMS) product line.
Planning the System Center Product Road Map
In March 2003, at the annual Microsoft Management Summit, Microsoft announced its strategic road map for enterprise management with its plans for the Microsoft System Center product suite, which will include the Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) and SMS. The System Center will deliver management solutions for change and configuration management, asset management, end-to-end application management, IT process orchestration, performance trending, reporting, and capacity planning on a unified management infrastructure on Windows.
As a first step in the road map, at the end of October Microsoft launched a significantly revised version of the SMS (SMS 2003) and announced plans to beta test MOM (MOM 2004). It also announced plans to partner with AmberPoint, Actional, and Adjoin Software (now owned by CA). These Web service management companies will build plug-ins for MOM.
SMS 2003 is geared toward letting large companies distribute software updates and patches automatically to PCs over corporate networks. It includes better support for mobile devices and Active Directory integration, improved scalability and performance, improved software metering, and better in-line reporting (including a switch to SQL Server Reports from Crystal Reports) for inventory and asset management, as well as integrated security with Active Directory and Windows NT security models. Ultimately, this new functionality—especially the scalability, software metering, and in-line reporting capabilities—makes the SMS a better self-managed solution for overall systems management rather than another niche administrative tool.
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