Two new management products are targeted for release in the second half of 2007: a trouble ticketing, asset management, and change-management product (code-named Service Desk), and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (code-named Carmine), a product for managing virtualization capabilities being built into the next release of Windows Server. Both products were announced at the Apr. 2006 Microsoft Management Summit (MMS), and although details are scant and neither product has gone into beta testing yet, they promise to fill critical gaps in Microsoft's portfolio of management technologies.

Service Desk

IT departments have long desired a "closed loop" systems-management solution in which monitoring software automatically detects a problem and generates an alert containing the probable cause. The alert then generates a trouble ticket linked to the specific hardware or software assets involved, which in turn initiates a software-enforced human workflow to resolve the issue. When a change is made to correct the problem (either manually or using automated tools), the management system updates the change control and asset databases to record what changed (including when and by whom) and automatically closes the associated ticket.

Today, it is not possible to implement anything resembling such a "closed loop" system using Microsoft technologies and products exclusively; it requires third-party products that address specific holes in Microsoft's systems management offerings. However, the resulting solutions still suffer from integration issues and functional limitations typical of solutions that attempt to combine complex components from multiple vendors without the benefit of comprehensive industry standards.

Current Microsoft Shortcomings

Out of the four major elements of a closed loop systems management solution, Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) is a competitive product for the first stage of the loop—monitoring, problem detection, diagnosis, and alerting for Windows systems—and third parties are building MOM management packs for monitoring many non-Microsoft OSs and applications.

However, Microsoft currently offers nothing for trouble ticketing and problem-resolution workflows. Until now, Microsoft has been steering customers to third-party solutions, such as BMC's Remedy product.

For the change control and asset management elements, Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) is only a partial solution. Although Microsoft bills SMS as its product for both asset inventory and configuration and change management (CCM), SMS really addresses only parts of both functions. Although SMS can install, patch, or uninstall software, detect changes in hardware and installed software, and keep track of those changes over time, it has no provisions for automated (or even manual) tracking of OS and application configuration changes (which should include logging the time and identity of the individuals making changes). SMS also does not interact with or track changes to Group Policy, another means of centrally configuring OS and application configuration settings.

SMS is also an incomplete solution for asset management. Although SMS can track some aspects of PC hardware, it cannot track other devices, such as printers or monitors, and it completely lacks facilities for tracking nontechnical information, such as purchase cost, depreciation, and support contracts.

For full CCM and asset management, Microsoft has been steering customers to solutions from companies such as Peregrine, PS'Soft, and Remedy.

Microsoft has been trying to model its management tools and technologies around its Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), a set of IT operational process guidelines based on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a series of books generally accepted in the IT industry as providing comprehensive documentation of best practices for IT service management and facilities planning. SMS and MOM provide elements of such a system, but don't assist or enforce the human workflows and processes key to the MOF methodology.

Decision to Create Service Desk

For years Microsoft has recognized that customers wanting to build a complete infrastructure for systems management and user support had to go through too much difficult and expensive product integration, particularly if the solution was to follow MOF methodology. At the Apr. 2005 MMS, Kirill Tatarinov, vice president for Enterprise Management, disclosed that Microsoft was taking a close look at IT service management solutions. Shortly thereafter, after surveying the market and not finding any existing products meeting its list of requirements, the company decided to build its own IT "service desk" product from scratch, and Microsoft revealed its plans at the Apr. 2006 MMS.

Even though many of its competitors have a decade or greater head start, Microsoft feels it can build a competitive product, code-named Service Desk, and ship it by the end of 2007 for the following reasons:

• Microsoft owns the platform technologies (Windows, Active Directory, Visual Studio, SQL Server, SharePoint, Exchange/Outlook, InfoPath, and the new Windows Workflow Foundation) on which Service Desk would be built and doesn't have to complicate development by supporting other software vendors' OSs, database engines, and related components
• Microsoft can tightly integrate Service Desk with its other System Center management products (SMS, MOM, Reporting Manager, Data Protection Manager, and its new PowerShell scripting environment), without encountering the design complications or compromises it would incur if it tried to make Service Desk open enough to integrate with many third-party systems management products
• Microsoft's own IT department has extensive experience in IT service management and can provide important design advice and beta test the product. (Microsoft plans to migrate its own IT department fully onto Service Desk within two years.)

What's Known About Service Desk

Service Desk is not yet in beta and Microsoft has not published detailed specifications, but it will be built on a SQL Server-based central management database (known in the industry as a CMDB) that will store data for the three major Service Desk modules: incident and problem management, asset lifecycle management, and change management.

All components will use the Windows Workflow Foundation to enforce human and computerized processes. These workflows will be defined in customizable "solution pack" templates that use an architecture similar to MOM management packs. By keeping customized code separate from the underlying products, Service Desk can be upgraded without breaking older solution packs.

Service Desk will also include a SharePoint-based self-service portal that allows end users to see the status of the system and request changes, such as installing a new program or recovering a deleted file.

Virtual Machine Manager

To complement the new virtualization capabilities (code-named Viridian) being built into the next version of Windows Server (code-named Longhorn), Microsoft is also working on an accompanying virtualization management product called System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Microsoft has stated Virtual Machine Manager will include the following:

• Virtual machine (VM) provisioning features that allow administrators to quickly create and deploy new VMs with an OS and applications fully installed in the desired configurations
• A VM placement capability that use System Definition Models and historical information from Microsoft Operations Manager to place VMs on the physical server that has the best combination of free resources and performance for the specific needs of the application
• Improved physical-to-virtual tools that make it easier to convert the OS and applications on a physical server into a VM.

The combination of Virtual Machine Manager and Viridian will constitute an important element in Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI). This is Microsoft's long-term plan to integrate software and hardware models, operational knowledge, and virtualization in such a way as to enable the so-called dynamic data center, where software is decoupled from physical resources, allowing it to be managed automatically for optimum availability and performance and to have a better chance of fixing itself when something goes wrong.

Resources

Windows Workflow Foundation is described in "Workflow Strategy Takes Shape" on page 15 of the Nov. 2005 Update.

Microsoft's virtualization plans are described in "Virtual Server Free, Linux Guests Supported". It is also described in "Changes to Server Virtualization Roadmap" on page 14 of the Jan. 2006 Update.

Microsoft's plans for SMS are described in "Systems Management Server Roadmap" on page 3 of the May 2006 Update.

The MOM roadmap is detailed in "Management Product Roadmap Expanding" on page 11 of the June 2005 Update.