Management News - December 2005
Highlights: IT Forum 2005
From November 14-November 17, in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft hosted off its IT Forum 2005 - a conference created specifically for IT Professionals. In addition to keynotes from Microsoft executives Bob Muglia and Jeff Raikes, Windows Enterprise Management Corporate Vice President, Kirill Tatarinov, spoke to attendees about investments Microsoft is making to help customers optimize their IT management infrastructure which will reduce cost and complexity.
Tatarinov addressed the opportunity that exists for customers to realize a world of self-managing dynamic systems to streamline and automate much of the routine maintenance of their systems, freeing up IT to be used in more strategic ways. To this point, Tatarinov made the following announcements that demonstrate progress being made with the Dynamic Systems Initiative, helping small, medium and large organizations move towards lifecycle management through the capturing and use of system knowledge in models across the lifecycle to design more manageable applications and automate on-going operations.
WS-Management update: HP and Dell commit to WS-Management supported hardware in 2006
At the IT Forum in Barcelona, Spain, Kirill Tatarinov, Corporate VP of Windows Enterprise Management Division, outlined progress being made with WS-Management, the specification jointly authored by AMD, BMC Software, CA, Dell, Fujitsu, Intel, NEC, Novell, Sun, Symantec and WBEM Solutions that uses Web services to manage networked clients, servers and devices. He announced support from both HP and Dell to include WS-Management support during 2006. Supporting statements from HP and Dell follow:
Dell: "Dell believes WS-Management is a Web services-based protocol that will address the systems management challenges presented by heterogeneous, highly distributed, service oriented application architectures," said Pete Morowski, Vice President of software at Dell. "Dell applauds Microsoft’s initiatives to drive WS-MAN standardization with DMTF hardware management standards. As a co-author of the standard, Dell will actively drive implementation of WS-Management into Dell and partner applications for delivery of WS-Man enabled solutions in the second half of 2006 – ultimately delivering customers enhanced flexibility and cost optimization for their enterprise computing resources."
HP: “To continue HP leadership as the best managed server platform, HP is pleased to be working with Microsoft to enhance our Windows customers’ experience. We’re delivering support for WS-Management with HP ProLiant servers in conjunction with Windows Server 2003 R2, as well as enhanced integration with MOM and SMS for ProLiant and Integrity servers" said Paul Miller, Vice President of Marketing for Industry Standard Servers. "These extensions to HP's management portfolio offer mutual HP and Microsoft customers even more choice in management tools, and complement HP Storage Management & HP OpenView products for management of the heterogeneous Adaptive Enterprise."
Now Available for Download: Solutions Released at IT Forum
Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 Desired Configuration Monitoring (DCM)
This solution enables IT professionals to easily define desired configuration settings across multiple hardware and software configuration sources and detect configuration non-compliance before service outages occur.
The Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 SLA Scorecard for Exchange
This solution provides an executive dashboard for measuring and trending service availability and workloads across multiple server roles in a Microsoft Exchange Server messaging environment. This solution also enables IT managers and service managers to collaborate and define desired service levels and identify the cause of service outages.
Both the SMS 2003 Desired Configuration Monitoring and the MOM 2005 SLA Scorecard for Exchange are available as free downloads at the Microsoft Download Center (www.microsoft.com/downloads)
Microsoft Exchange Service Management Guide
This guide is a top-down, business-driven approach to managing a messaging environment. It specifically addresses the strategic business value that an Exchange team generates and the need to deliver a superior messaging service. The guidance will help you implement process and team best practices within the corresponding components of the Exchange Service Management solution: Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 SLA Scorecard for Exchange and Systems Management Server 2003 Desired Configuration Monitoring.
Windows IT Pro Magazine Readers Rank WSUS #1 Patch Management Product
A recent survey of 1,700 readers of Windows IT Pro Magazine revealed that Windows Server Update Services won first place in the Patch Management product category for the 2005 Windows IT Pro Readers' Choice Awards.
