Section covers products for managing Windows computers, including the Systems Management Server and Microsoft Operations Manager, Virtual PC and Virtual Server, and other System Center products.

Microsoft’s systems management roadmap for the next two years has become increasingly clear. The company has consolidated all of its systems management technologies and products under a single vice president (and a family of management products named System Center) and will eventually rely on a uniform client infrastructure for software patching. Meanwhile, virtualization products are becoming a critical solution for both systems management and interoperability with other OSs.

(For a graphical overview of releases for these products as well as monitoring and analysis products, see the illustration “Systems Management Overview“.)

Virtualization

The Virtual PC and Virtual Server virtualization products emulate a complete computer, including processor, memory, graphics card, network interface, and storage devices (such as disk and CD-ROM drives). This virtualized hardware gives users access to multiple OS instances (called “guest” OSs) and applications running on one physical PC with its installed OS (called the “host” OS). Virtualization can significantly simplify management by aiding consolidation of applications onto fewer servers, and migration of applications from one server to another. It is also used for legacy application support, software testing and evaluation, problem reproduction, and training.

Microsoft’s systems management roadmap for the next two years has become increasingly clear. The company has consolidated all of its systems management technologies and products under a single vice president (and a family of management products named System Center) and will eventually rely on a uniform client infrastructure for software patching. Meanwhile, virtualization products are becoming a critical solution for both systems management, and interoperability with other OSs.

Virtualization

Microsoft offers two complementary types of virtualization products: hardware virtualization and OS virtualization. Hardware virtualization products, such as Virtual Server, allow a single physical machine to run multiple simulated computers with OS instances (called virtual machines, or VMs) at the same time. Hardware virtualization has also been used by developers and testers to simulate multiserver, multi-OS networks on one computer, and it is increasingly being used in production datacenters to improve server utilization, availability, and provisioning. OS virtualization, in contrast, enables multiple applications to run isolated from one another in a single OS instance, reducing application conflicts and enabling simpler, more reliable central deployment of desktop applications.

Products for managing Windows computers, including virtualization technologies, Systems Management Server, Microsoft Operations Manager, and other System Center products

Microsoft’s systems management roadmap for the next two years has become increasingly clear. The company has consolidated all of its systems management technologies and products under a single vice president (and a family of management products named System Center) and will eventually rely on a uniform client infrastructure for software patching. Meanwhile, virtualization products are becoming a critical solution for both systems management, and interoperability with other OSs.

Virtualization

Microsoft continues to rapidly expand its efforts in virtualization technology, which has significant implications for how datacenters are designed and managed and how both server and desktop applications are deployed, installed, and maintained.

The company offers two very different but complementary types of virtualization technologies, hardware virtualization and operating system virtualization. (For a graphical overview of releases and retirements for virtualization technology, see the illustration “Virtualization Overview“.)