Opalis Integration Packs for System Center

New OS support and integration packs allow Opalis software to work with Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and four additional System Center products. Opalis Integration Server 6.3, released in Nov. 2010, helps customers manage heterogeneous systems and makes Microsoft’s System Center line of products a more complete systems management offering. However, Opalis is only available to licensed holders of qualifying System Center Server Management suite licenses.

New OS and System Center Support

Acquired by Microsoft in Dec. 2009, Opalis provides IT process automation (ITPA) that works with other infrastructure management software from BMC, CA, HP, IBM, Microsoft, and others. The acquisition strengthened Microsoft’s entry into the help desk arena by providing ITPA to automate complex IT processes, such as trouble ticketing or provisioning virtual servers, to reduce costs and increase service delivery speed while lessening reliance on experts when problems arise.

Opalis consists of three basic components: integration server software, integration packs, and process catalogs. The integration server software interacts with IT monitoring and software distribution systems, sets up and executes workflows, and reports results. Integration packs coordinate the information flow between the integration server and specific types of IT monitoring and software distribution systems; for example, Microsoft’s System Center products. Integration packs can be authored using Microsoft programming languages (such as C#), Java, or PowerShell script, and an SDK is available for authoring integration packs. Process catalogs are workflows for common processes such as adding a PC to a collection of managed devices; handling incident response; or starting, stopping, and moving virtual machines. Opalis provides a large number of predefined workflows for more than 25 systems management products. An Opalis client and a Policy Testing Console are tools used by designers to create, modify, test, and deploy automation policies for process catalogs.