System Center Essentials Management Suite

A new software license package for small to midsize businesses, System Center Essentials Management Suite, combines the System Center Essentials systems management software with Virtual Machine Manager for virtualization management. The suite gives smaller organizations a convenient way to buy several Microsoft management products that help them distribute software, manage inventory, and centralize for both physical and virtual machines. It is available from Microsoft through OEMs and includes rights to upgrade to the next version of System Center Essentials, expected in the second quarter of 2010.

OEMs to Offer Suite

System Center Essentials (SCE) 2007 is Microsoft’s systems management software for small and midsize businesses. It combines Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and a subset of Operations Manager 2007 features into a unified product with a simplified console designed for administrators. Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 is Microsoft’s software tool for provisioning, managing, and storing virtual machines (VMs) for hardware virtualization, allowing organizations to consolidate production applications onto fewer, better-utilized servers. System Center Essentials Management Suite is purely a licensing bundle that lets customers acquire one license for the two products.