Virtual Machine Manager
Forster: Virtualization is the hottest technology in our industry,
and competition is already out there. System Center Virtual Machine Manager
(VMM) is in beta, scheduled for launch in Q3 of 2007. What's your competitive
angle on managing a virtual environment?
Tatarinov: We think you can't look at virtualization in isolation.
Our approach to virtualization management is to bring it under the context of
the infrastructure and enterprise management overall. System Center Virtual
Machine Manager is the product that will extend Operations Manager and Configuration
Manager into the domain of virtual machines and enable those products to provide
seamless management of both the physical and virtual environment. This is the
core differentiator for Microsoft compared to other players in that space.
Forster: What are the challenges in managing a virtual
environment?
Tatarinov: It's a whole lot more dynamic compared to physical machines.
Things like rapid discovery and capacity-based and on-demand provisioning become
much more important than in the physical world and are done on a much more frequent
basis.
Forster: How do you differentiate VMM from competitors such
as VMWare?
Tatarinov: We're combining the management of physical and virtual
environments, and we enable people to use the same interfaces to manage their
entire application, entire service, whether it's implemented on a physical or
virtual machine.
In Longhorn Server, with Windows hypervisor, we're now thinking of virtualization
as a component, or feature, of Windows as opposed to being something standalone.
A big differentiator that customers recognize is that Windows has virtualization
as a feature.
Data Protection Manager
Forster: System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) has been
a successful disk-based backup solution for file and print servers. The demand
for DPM to also back up SQL Server and Exchange has been high since DPM launched.
Tatarinov: DPM V2 will support SQL Server, Exchange, and SharePoint.
DPM V2 also provides archiving capabilities and works directly with tape drives.
We're enhancing and simplifying the UI, which is already much simpler than what
the rest of the industry could offer. It's going to be a killer product.
Service Desk and VSTS
Forster: The new System Center product code named "Service
Desk" is currently in private beta, with a public beta slated for April 2007and
RTM for a year later. What is Service Desk?
Tatarinov: The product provides a platform for end-to-end IT management
and a framework to build solutions on top of that. Service Desk includes a workflow
engine that will provide the basis for how we automate IT processes, and the
implementation of the SML-based CMDB, which will be the foundation of our asset-
and change-management capability. Following DSI's principle of capturing knowledge
in models, Service Desk will include workflow templates for key customer scenarios.
Service Desk will also deliver unprecedented integration with both Operations
Manager and SCCM.
A very important platform aspect of Service Desk is a self-service portal.
We're focused on enabling end users to do as many things as possible. So IT
pros can define a policy. Then that policy is applied to the organization, and
the end user is empowered to automatically do things that the policy allows.
Forster: Service Desk seems to bring "designed for
operations" full circle by providing a means to feed production and user data
back into the development process through VSTS (Visual Studio Team System).
(Sam Guckenheimer, a group product planner in the VSTS group, explains the role
of VSTS in DSI in the Web-exclusive sidebar "System Center ‘Service Desk'
and VSTS: Where IT and Dev Meet," InstantDoc ID 95147)
Tatarinov: "Designed for operations" is a prime DSI concept—DSI
being the connector of the entire system life cycle. Manageability and operational
disciplines need to come early in the cycle, and everybody who builds the system
needs to think about manageability. They need to be creating health, configuration,
and task models early in the design phase rather than employing the traditional
approach, which was: Build the system first, it goes into production as a black
box, and then someone else—like a traditional systems management vendor—comes
in and pokes at that black box to find out what's going on. You can't manage
the unmanageable. If a system is created as an unmanageable black box, it's
going to remain a black box and you'll just spend more money trying to manage
it. "Designed for operations" means there are no black boxes. The system is
created to be easily put into production and easily managed.
Forster: Integration of IT knowledge is a core tenet of DSI,
so how does Service Desk incorporate that knowledge?
Tatarinov: The knowledge we assembled and put into the market in
the form of Solution Accelerators will be encoded in Service Desk. Another important
aspect: Every serious IT organization has little books in which its knowledge
is written. Those organizations will be able to encode that knowledge and make
it residual. In Service Desk, you'll be able to define best practices and policies
for applying change or managing assets and for levels of approval, and it's
all going to live in the product.
Doing the Right Thing
System Center isn't going to make systems management sexy, but the vision of
enabling self-managing dynamic systems is going to help IT deal with its highest
priorities and greatest pain points. By focusing on simplifying IT, Microsoft
is protecting and conserving its greatest asset—its customers.
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