3 New System Center RTMs

As expected there have been announcements at this years MMS. The System Center team try and focus their release efforts around this event.

So we have

System Center Data Protection (DPM) 2010 – http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/data-protection-manager.aspx

and

System Center Essentials 2010 (SCE 2010) – http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/essentials.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenteressentials/archive/2010/04/19/sc-essentials-2010-is-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

Info on both here – http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2010/04/19/the-right-tools-for-the-job-sce-2010-dpm-2010.aspx

The biggie that ties them all together and was expected last year.

System Center Service Manager 2010 – http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/service-manager.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_stranger/archive/2010/04/21/download-microsoft-system-center-service-manager-2010-eval.aspx

http://wmug.co.uk/blogs/aquilaweb/archive/2010/04/21/service-manager-2010-rtm-eval.aspx

And some additional tools and visualisation for OpsMgr.

Following last Friday’s Office 2010 RTM. This release consists of two downloads:

1. Visio 2010 Add-in and Operations Manager 2007 R2

2. SharePoint 2010 Visio Services Data Provider

What’s new:

In addition to all the great functionality we added in the original Visio 2007 add-in, this adds,

•The Visio 2010 Add-in fully integrates the Visio 2007 add-in functionality into the Visio 2010 ribbon for a seamless user experience.
•The SharePoint 2010 Visio Services Data Provider leverages the power of Visio Services to provide the ability display Visio diagrams as live dashboards in SharePoint pulling health state directly from Operations Manager.

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2010/04/20/visio-and-sharepoint-2010-extensions-for-operations-manager-have-shipped.aspx

This lot will take some digesting.

All Quiet on the Blog Front

I have been pretty quiet here for a few reasons. There are so many good bloggers now that finding something new and different to say is harder. Also the projects I have been working on have not pushed any boundaries.

I note that a few people are having problems with flights to MMS due to the volcano in Iceland. If that does not clear up it will be a very quiet MMS as a large portion of the attendees come from Europe. I had no plans to go (which is just as well) as I tend to skip an MMS. It works out as the OpsMgr stuff usually happens every 2 years. R2 last year and 2007 3 years ago. The interim years have really good sessions on best practices and notes from the field which is great if you are new to the product and looking to deploy it in your organisation.

The big thing this year will be around Service Manager. It would have been nice to get some in depth hands on with Opalis now that Microsoft have bought it and bundled it with the System Center Suite license. I remember talking to those guys years ago and seeing it demonstrated. It looked really good but the price was way too high in comparison to what a customer was paying for MOM 2005. Bundling it as part of the suite makes the suite more attractive. I have not heard if they will release it as a stand alone product. They might even change its name! Bets are off that it will start System Center. It is what comes after that. What about System Center Workflow or System Center Automation. Sounds like the type of generic word that Microsoft would use. Marketing person from years ago – “it is a word processor. I know. Let’s call it Word.”