Management Packs Boost New Microsoft Capabilities

By Michelle Savage

May 1, 2008 —  (Page 1 of 3)
In support of Microsoft’s newest releases for managing cross-platform physical and virtual environments, several systems management vendors have announced solutions designed to help IT managers get the most out of Microsoft's System Center platform.

Three new public betas—all enhancing capabilities in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007—were announced on Tuesday at the Microsoft Management Summit 2008 event in Las Vegas, including System Center Operations Manager 2007 Cross Platform Extensions, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and System Center Connectors.

Several companies, including Novell, Quest Software and Xandros, followed Microsoft’s lead with announcements that they would deliver improved monitoring and management capabilities for applications made by the Apache Software Foundation, MySQL AB, Oracle and more.  

Novell Expands Linux Management Solutions
As part of an 18-month-old interoperability agreement, Microsoft and Novell will create Linux management solutions that will help customers simplify the management of mixed IT environments.

This extension of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager uses industry standards, such as WS-Management and open-source software, to deliver Linux and UNIX management. Through its collaboration with Microsoft, industry standards and open-source software, Novell plans to create an advanced Linux management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007.

Novell also plans to utilize the open-source interoperable providers to extend the Linux management capabilities of its ZENworks systems management products. According to Joe Wagner, senior vice president and general manager for Novell Systems and Resource Management, these extensions will allow administrators to view and perform health monitoring across Linux, Unix and Windows systems through a single pane.

“On the operability side, we’re taking Microsoft’s basic management pack capabilities and extending them,” said Wagner. “We’ll be able to provide a richer management experience that gets exposed to the systems in Cisco Linux console. And then we’ll do the reverse. On the Linux side, as we work together to get to a common instrumentation and access to instrumentation, Linux providers will be able to do the same when they look at Windows servers.”

These cross-platform extensions are now entering public beta, and are expected to be released in 2009.

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