Systems Management Product Roadmap

During 2008, Microsoft’s System Center lineup of system management products will gain new features, including Windows Server 2008 support, cross-platform extensions for Operations Manager, and updates to Configuration Manager and Virtual Machine Manager. Microsoft hopes that the expanding line of enterprise products, particularly the cross-platform additions, can help displace incumbent systems management providers, give customers better management tools, and allow partners to expand their system management offerings.

Configuration, Monitoring, Backup, and More

The System Center line is Microsoft’s product set for enterprise systems management and includes products for computer configuration, monitoring, backup, capacity planning, software deployment and installation, and other administrative tasks.

At the Apr. 2008 Microsoft Management Summit (MMS 2008), the company announced plans to update several of the products in the System Center lineup. Updates to support Windows Server 2008 and virtualization will arrive in 2008, while 2009 is likely to be a pivotal year as betas for several System Center products will probably appear prior to major releases in 2010 or later. System administrators will applaud the addition of PowerShell scripting to all the products, while expanded support for virtualization will bring new focus to Microsoft’s virtualization initiatives. (For a graphical overview of releases for these products, see the illustration “System Center Product Timeline“.)