v.Next = 2012

I attended the event “War on Cost” run by Inframon on Friday 5th. There was a whole bunch of Microsofties from Redmond there on their way to TechEd. It was great hearing some of the stuff that will be coming out. As soon as they said that the new products are going to be called 2012 (SCOM, SCCM and SCVMM) I knew that there was going to be a delay. Microsoft name the products based on their financial year which is July to June and not the calendar year. That means anything that has 2012 in the title will not be released until at least July 2011.

OpsMgr will have a public beta in Q2 2011, RC in Q3 and RTM in Q4 (probably about Oct/Nov) – this is calendar year and not Microsoft financial year. Key points are that OpsMgr now has the networking technology from EMC Smarts that they announced a few years ago at a previous MMS, that you can do an in place upgrade from 2007 and at the moment the console looks very similar to 2007. With it being a year away from RTM a lot can change.

They were also very keen to keep a cadence going with the Cumulative Updates being released every quarter and they mentioned that new features could be added as part of the CU. I asked about certificates and DMZ scenarios in 2012 but it seems there will be little change in that area. Which is doubly annoying. Not only is it one of the trickiest areas for organisations to get right but as DMZ agents are often manually installed a quarterly CU means a lot of work to keep them up to date.

ConfigMgr 2012 takes on the System Center style console which is supposed to improve console performance. Flattening the hierarchy and better performance seem to be key areas. Having not looked at it for a while 2012 looks good.

Later this month Opalis 6.3 gets released with connectors for all the System Center products and a new improved one for OpsMgr. Microsoft is working their way through this product to make it more of a Microsoft product. The demos looked pretty good and it looks like another great buy for Microsoft and provides a glue that can link all the System Center products and provide Run Book style automation or even link into other systems. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

I have seen the AViCode stuff before but it was nice to see it demoed now that Microsoft have purchased it. A great tool for monitoring and analysing code and performance problems with web sites – especially .Net.

I am sure these will all be covered at TechEd in more depth so expect more announcements. The main thing that I took away from the day is that I will not be going to the MMS in March as it is too soon to get up to speed on the new version of OpsMgr. A shame as I have gone every second year to coincide with the major releases of the product.

SCCM R3

My old ex colleague and buddy Jeff Wettlaufer, announce that System Center Configuration Manager will be having an R3 release.

http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2009/09/08/announcing-system-center-configuration-manager-2007-r3.aspx

R3? That is a new one on me. I wonder how the marketing guys came up with that one? And will we see it spread to other products? Anyone for Windows 2008 R3 and then R4?

It looks like the big thing for this release is power management. Interesting as this is an area that 1E has been active in for some time with their NightWatchman product.

http://www.1e.com/SoftwareProducts/NightWatchman/Index.aspx

You can also read more about NightWatchman in the 1E blog.

Ian

SCOM Nagios Connector

Markus Baeker has posted a connector to link SCOM and Nagios. Normally the blog is in German but this post is in English as there is now an English instruction manual and you can define English status messages.

http://www.mbaeker.de/2009/07/scom2nagios-1-2/

It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

MMS Keynote – Brad Anderson

Brad Anderson did this morning’s keynote. This was more focused than yesterdays but was still quite low energy with not much excitement or feedback from the audience. Most of his talk was futures and about focusing on the client and end up with a demo of the next version of Config Manager showing that an application can be set to follow a user on a number of devices and use different ways of presenting that app depending on the device. If the PC is the users primary device then it installs, if it is not a primary device then a Remote App session shortcut is presented and on some devices they will just get a message saying that the subscribed app is not available on this device.

Service Manager was demoed and that is building up for a release next year.

My old colleague, Jeff Wettlauffer, demonstrated the new OS upgrade method of SCCM installing Windows 7 RC on XP but keeping all the data on the PC without having to copy the data up to a server and back down. Also showed the app compatibility toolkit and then getting that old app to run on Med-V which is basically a copy of Virtual PC with XP but seamless so that the user only sees the app.

The most interesting demo was the new System Center Online tool which builds on WSUS and is like a web based version of WSUS, ForeFront and Config Manager in the cloud that you can log onto and then start managing your desktops with this tool. No servers to buy and no software to buy, install configure and look after. I can see this being very popular in small organisations if they get the pricing right.

Key dates for next major versions

For 2011

• System Center Operations Manager
• System Center Configuration Manager
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager
• System Center Service Manager

For 2010

• System Center Service Manager
• System Center Data Protection Manager
• System Center Online Desktop Manager
• System Center Essentials

See slide http://www.scom2k7.com/system-center-roadmap/

No mention of System Center Capacity Manager!

MMS Announcement Predictions

An interesting article that Techlog highlights mentions that Microsoft should buy companies to fill in the gaps in their heterogeneous monitoring to compete with the Big 4 (Tivoli, CA, HP and BMC). The article also mentions that perhaps there may be announcements at MMS. The trouble buying companies is integrating them. And there is the problem of them working – remember software metering in SMS v2? Worked OK on small numbers but could not scale to the numbers SMS dealt with. I remember Kirill Tartarinov saying that he was against buying companies based on his experience at BMC. But he has moved on so perhaps the strategy will change.

Well it is always fun to second guess the announcements. From last years MMS I would have expected the big announcement to be the RTM of System Center Service Manager but we know that is now delayed. SCOM has had SP1 delivered and SCCM has SP1 in RC form. But SP’s are not much to talk about. They could always talk about how they have renamed Business Desktop Deployment to Microsoft Deployment! That is sure to get a standing ovation.

I am hoping that they will announce the SCOM model for Capacity Planner as it is over a year now since SCOM was released and the “official” sizing tool is still not here even though SCCP RTMed at the beginning of February. And SCOM has had SP1 released.

So what is there left? Next versions of SCOM, SCCM and SCVMM? They are still a bit young to have new versions I would have thought. I will be interested to see what the big announcements are as I can not think of any although another SP or R2 release for SCOM to fix the remaining issues would get my vote. If they have decided to buy a company it will be interesting to see what that will bring and if it is as good as the purchase of SoftGrid which I thought was one of Microsoft’s best purchases.

What would you like to see announced next week?

System Center Webcasts December 07

There is a strong Configuration Manager theme in Decembers webcasts.

http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/archive/2007/12/04/system-center-webcasts-december-07.aspx

New Stuff

As well as the release candidate for SCOM SP1 there is a lot of new management stuff.

WSUS SP1 RC is also available on Connect.
http://blogs.technet.com/smsandmom/archive/2007/11/06/wsus-3-0-service-pack-1-release-candidate-now-available.aspx

PowerShell 2 community technology preview.
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2007/11/06/the-community-technology-preview-ctp-of-windows-powershell-2-0.aspx

Eric Berg talks about the new System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM?) and how it differs from SCCM with the now embedded Device Management Feature Pack that was originally done for SMS. Something I was curious about so I am glad Eric cleared it up. http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2007/11/02/managing-mobile-devices-with-system-center.aspx 

SCVMM R2 BETA ships 45 days after Viridian. Also it may be this version or the next that is supposed to able to manage VMware and XEN as well. That would be good news.

SCCM is now available on https://licensing.microsoft.com if you have the rights to download it and the tip for finding it is to search for “Config Mgr Svr 2007″.
http://blogs.technet.com/smsandmom/archive/2007/11/06/configuration-manager-2007-rtm-is-now-available-on-the-mvls-site.aspx

Insight for AD is from the Sysinternals guys and is about helping diagnose AD issues with real-time monitoring (think Sniffer for AD).
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/adinsight.mspx

The home page lists all the tools and utilities by date released. Lots of handy stuff here for managing and diagnosing servers.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

System Centre Webcasts for July

Thanks to Eileen

TechNet Webcast: Deploying System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (Level 200)
Monday, July 02, 2007 – 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Wally Mead, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032343568&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Deploying System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Clients (Level 300)
Friday, July 06, 2007 – 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM Pacific Time
Wally Mead, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032343641&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200)
Monday, July 09, 2007 – 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM Pacific Time
John Weston, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032343630&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Security and Enterprise Features of System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200)
Monday, July 16, 2007 – 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific Time
John Baker, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032343648&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: System Center Operations Manager 2007 Technical Overview (Level 200)
Monday, July 23, 2007 – 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific Time
John Baker, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032343664&Culture=en-US

New System Center Webcasts for June

Thanks to Eileen for this info.

TechNet Webcast: System Center Operations Manager 2007 Technical Overview (Level 200)
Monday, June 11, 2007 – 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific Time
Chris Avis, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032340807&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Client Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200)
Monday, June 18, 2007 – 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific Time
Blain Barton, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032341227&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: What’s New in Systems Management Server 2003 SP3 (Level 200)
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 – 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Wally Mead, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032341247&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: System Center Operations Manager 2007 Installation and Management Pack Migration (Level 200)
Friday, June 22, 2007 – 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM Pacific Time
Bryan Von Axelson, IT Pro Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032341253&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Introduction to System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (Level 200)
Tuesday, June 26, 2007 – 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Wally Mead, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032341255&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Windows PowerShell: The Future of Server Administration (Level 300)
Tuesday, June 05, 2007 – 10:00 AM – 11:15 AM Pacific Time
Don Jones, Scripting Guru and Author, SAPIEN Technology
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90647

TechNet Webcast: Under-the-Hood Extensions in Windows PowerShell (Level 200)
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 – 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Don Jones, Scripting Guru and Author, SAPIEN Technology
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032321876&Culture=en-US

Big Demo

If you want a demo that is all set up for you (by Microsoft) and even gives you a script then look no further than http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d7329b8-2bd1-4ab4-a73c-75e9e0912de8&DisplayLang=en. You do need to register.

This is 9 virtual machines (1.8 GB if you download them all) which covers SCOM, SCCM beta 2, Forefront Client Security (FCS), Forefront Security Manager for Exchange and Intelligent Application Gateway. Quite a load of stuff. Also in the mix is Exchange 2007, ISA 2006 SE, SharePoint 2007and WSS v3. And because FCS is there then MOM 2005 is also there!

You will obviously need Virtual PC or Virtual Server but these are both free. The VMs run Windows 2003 R2 EE which expires on 25th April 2008 which gives you 11 months to use them. Although the Forefront Client Security beta expires on 30th June 2007 and I am assuming other bits will expire as well although those are not documented.

I have only just downloaded them but it does say that you will need 10 GB of disk space and 2 GB of RAM although 4 GB is recommended. I’ll say. You need to give SCOM at least 1 GB of its recommended 2 GB to see reasonable performance. Actually in the script document it does say that you will need more that 2 GB for some of the demos. There are 5 different demos.

1. System Center Configuration Manager pushing Forefront Client Security signatures to keep a client machine updated
2. Forefront Security for Exchange Server blocking viruses in emails received in Outlook 2007
3. System Center Operations Manager monitoring the health of servers and clients in the environment
4. Intelligent Application Gateway adapting user access to SharePoint 2007 based on end-point policy detection
5. Forefront Client Security performing Real-time Protection against malware.

You can just download the document which goes through the demos and scenarios and the text file and that will give you an idea for what is on each machine.

I will be setting all this up on my 4 GB server to see how it all runs.