By Peter Pawlak [bio]
Posted: May 7, 2007

The following is an illustration accompanying an article published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

This timeline shows estimated release dates for products in the System Center line. Operations Manager (OM) 2007 became the first 2007 release for the System Center family. Released in late March and replacing Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005, OM 2007 supports monitoring of services that span multiple servers and uses a completely new model-based management pack architecture. An interim service pack or hot fix is planned for late summer or fall to enable OM 2007 to run on and monitor the next version of Windows Server, which is code-named Longhorn and expected in late 2007. The next version of OM, which could be a minor R2 release (shown on the chart) or a major release, is planned for the second half of 2008 and will include EMC Smarts technology for native management of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) network devices.

A minor 3.0 update to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Microsoft's free product for centralized patch management, shipped in May 2007. A new management and monitoring product for smaller businesses, called Essentials 2007, shipped at the same time and contains technology from both WSUS 3.0 and OM 2007.

SMS 2003 gets one more service pack in May 2007 to add support for Vista and deeper asset management, and then becomes Configuration Manager (CM) 2007. Due in the third quarter of 2007, CM 2007 will support model-based desired-configuration monitoring and the new image-based installation technology of Windows Vista, among other capabilities. CM 2007 SP1, which will ship in the first half of 2008, will add support for Longhorn. CM 2007 R2, due during the second half of 2008, will usher in a new reporting system and deeper integration with Microsoft's SoftGrid OS virtualization product.

Capacity Planner (which simulates loads for scalability analysis) has an update planned for the third quarter of 2007.

In the second half of 2007, Microsoft's Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2006 backup product will undergo a major update, DPM 2007, to support disk-based and tape-based backup of system state, databases, and virtual machines, but some features will require Longhorn.

Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008—a new product for managing virtual machines hosted by Virtual Server 2005 R2—will ship in the fourth quarter of 2007. An R2 release of VMM 2008, needed to manage VMs hosted by the native virtualization capabilities being added to Longhorn (code-named Viridian), will ship in the first half of 2008.

Service Manager, a new product for incident and problem management, asset life-cycle management, and change management, will debut in the first half of 2008. The features of Reporting Manager 2006 (which generates reports from data extracted from SMS 2003 and MOM 2005 databases) will be merged into Service Manager and will report on data extracted from OM 2007 and CM 2007.