The public beta version of Operations Manager 2012 is now available here (http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/om-vnext-beta.aspx).  

This is first publicly available version of the new release, and it has lots of great new capabilities as described on the web page.   There’s a great datasheet and FAQ list that are linked to from that page.

New cross-platform capabilities are in two categories: 

  1. UNIX/Linux and
  2. Java.  

For UNIX/Linux, the major improvements are:

  • You no longer need the “root” password for UNIX/Linux computers!   The ability to elevate privileges using “sudo” is now implemented, so your UNIX/Linux admin can provide an unprivileged account to OpsMgr, and manage the elevation using UNIX/Linux tools.
  • Resource Pools are supported for UNIX/Linux computers, providing a configuration that’s highly available in the face of a Management Server failure
  • The console UI for discovering UNIX/Linux computers has been improved, and there’s now console UI for upgrading and uninstalling
  • Support for Red Hat 6 and AIX 7.1 is included

For Java, this beta includes new management packs for managing Java application servers, specifically IBM WebSphere, Oracle WebLogic, Red Hat JBoss, and Tomcat.    Note that these management packs are in a .zip file that must be separately downloaded.   Documentation is included in the .zip file.   With these management packs, we’re extending OpsMgr to include monitoring the full range of applications that are found in enterprise – not only .NET, but Java as well.

Please take this beta out for a test drive!   We really want your feedback on the functionality as well as on any bugs or problems you find. 

 

Here are some useful links: