Microsoft News Tracker

Aside from the AssetMetrix acquisition, there was a variety of other news from the Microsoft Management Summit 2006. At one point Microsoft had planned to build a product called System Center that combined its management software icons, System Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) but has given that up in the face of customer resistance and “now plans to use System Center as a brand, covering a half dozen different products.”

Here’s the rundown:

The new System Center offerings released and announced over the past year are:

• System Center Data Protection Manager 2006

• System Center Capacity Planner 2006

• System Center Reporting Manager 2006
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MOM V3 will become Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, while SMS V4 will become Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007.

and there’s a new service desk product planned:

We also announced our investment in a new product for the service-desk market, to be delivered toward the end of 2007. This is a very significant announcement as with this product, codenamed Service Desk, we are providing two key components that will form the foundation for the entire System Center family: 1) A workflow engine that will provide the basis for how we automate IT processes, and 2) the implementation of the SDM-based Configuration Management Database (CMDB), which will be the foundation of our asset and change management capability.

Underlying all this is a new administrative scripting language called Windows PowerShell:

We announced the delivery schedule for Windows PowerShell, formerly known as MONAD. Windows PowerShell is a powerful administrative command shell and scripting environment. It will be available as a no-charge Web download in the second half of this year. Also, we announced that the next version of Microsoft Exchange, which will be the first Microsoft application to deliver new automation capability based on PowerShell, will officially be named Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. In addition, System Center Operations Manager 2007 is building a solution based on PowerShell. The Exchange Management Shell in Exchange Server 2007 is based on PowerShell and will save IT administrators valuable hours by allowing routine and repetitive tasks to be automated through a scriptable command line shell.

In addition, Exchange Server 2007, which is due end of 2006 or early 2007, will include the Exchange Management Console – a graphical console also built entirely on top of MMC 3.0 and PowerShell that will increase administrative productivity through simplified navigation and new filtering capabilities for managing the messaging environment.

The above is apparently the first announcement of the formal name for the next version of Exchange, heretofore called Exchange 12. You can download RC1 of PowerShell via the links at this post on the Monad Technology Blog.

Microsoft’s offshoring efforts continue apace as Barkha Shah reports at the Business Standard:

Microsoft India Development Centre (MIDC) is singularly working on developing the second version (V2) of its disk-based back-up product, Data Protection Manager (DPM).

The first version of the product (DPM V1) was a collaborative effort between the Hyderabad and Redmond centres of the $39.79 billion software behemoth.

According to Srini Koppolu, managing director of MIDC:

The 1,000-people strong centre has almost grown 10-fold in the last four years.

MIDC has worked on adding features like remote access, digital imaging and the likes for Windows Vista too. “While we work on adding features to Microsoft’s products, we have also successfully set up core centres of excellence (CoE) on radio frequency identification (RFID) and data protection,” he added.
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DPM V2 is likely to be released in the second half of 2007. Meanwhile, the RFID platform technologies (completely done out of MIDC) will be released by the end of 2006 or early 2007. MIDC is also working on developer and platform offerings for mobile devices.

Microsoft last week provided a press release touting it’s Universal Distributed Storage vision. Details aren’t exactly copious, but when last heard from (at the launch of Data Protection Manager in September) it was “delivering distributed storage solutions built on industry standard hardware.” We’ve mentioned previously that hardware vendors are finding that difficult. In this latest iteration:

Responding to customer needs, Microsoft has outlined its Universal Distributed Storage vision, which is about mainstreaming high-end functionality to deliver storage solutions that are built on industry-standard hardware and offered via a multitude of partners in order to lower TCO. Microsoft is working to ensure that Windows manages distributed data storage more cost-effectively than any other platform, irrespective of where the data is – on a server or remote worker’s desktop, centralized or spread across branch offices, on Storage Area Networks (SANs) or Network Attached Storage (NAS).

It’s still trying to sell commodity hardware with Microsoft software which has well known difficulties, but there were two specifics that occasioned the release:

Two announcements on milestones in Microsoft’s progress in storage technology, pertaining to the Microsoft Simple SAN for Windows Server Program and a joint marketing effort between Microsoft and PolyServe, are being made this week at the Storage Networking World conference, a gathering of IT managers, storage architects and infrastructure professionals in Orlando, Fla., October 24-26.
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Microsoft is making SANs simpler by leading the industry in shipping technology designed to make it easier to configure and manage this storage option. The forthcoming Windows Server 2003 R2, for example will include a SAN-provisioning application called Storage Manager for SANs. Through its industry-wide Microsoft Simple SAN for Windows Server Program, Microsoft is working with its storage partners to help drive the creation of simple SAN solutions for Windows Server 2003 users for all levels of companies.

We’ve been doing SANs for six, seven years now,” says Baldwin. “Back in the early days it seemed like no two deployments were alike. You could never get the same results. It’s gotten so much easier in just the last year. Now it’s almost like SAN-in-a-box – plug it in and go to work. This is big step in the right direction. It’s going to make SANs the standard way people do storage in any kind of computer environment.”

Industry partners who have just received the Microsoft Simple SAN for Windows Server designation are Brocade, Emulex, EqualLogic, Hitachi Data Systems and String Bean Software, while QLogic’s designation was announced last month.
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Also new on the storage technology front is Microsoft’s joint marketing effort with PolyServe to bring highly scalable Windows-based Network Attached Storage clustered file solutions to market. This effort is aimed at simplifying file server consolidation, which remains a key area where cost reductions can be achieved in today’s IT environments.

PolyServe Matrix Server is leading shared-data-clustering software for Windows Storage Server 2003, which enables multiple Windows-based NAS and servers to function as a single, easy-to-use, highly available system. It comprises a true symmetric cluster file system (CFS) that enables scalable data sharing, high availability services that increase system uptime and cluster and storage management capabilities for managing servers and storage as one.

So PolyServe has grabbed a niche by extending the capabilities of Storage Server while other folks are all building plug compatible “SAN-in-a-box” units based on vanilla Storage Server R2 (due before the end of the year). I’m pretty sure which will be most lucrative.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the same day there was an announcement that IBM leads group to create open-source storage software:

IBM and eight other storage vendors are teaming up to form an open-source organization initially called Aperi, Big Blue announced Tuesday. The companies intend to work together to develop common storage software to manage different vendors’ systems, making it easier for users dealing with disparate storage systems. The software will be made available free of charge.
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Aperi will be modeled after the Eclipse consortium set up by IBM in conjunction with other vendors to handle open-source projects to create development tools and frameworks for building software. Eclipse was spun out from IBM in early 2004 to become an independent, nonprofit organization called the Eclipse Foundation.

IBM’s partners in Aperi are Brocade Communications Systems, Cisco Systems, Computer Associates, International, Engenio Information Technologies, Fujitsu, McData, Network Appliance, and Sun Microsystems. This is a roll call of some but not all of the leading storage vendors. Missing are EMC, Hewlett-Packard, and Symantec.

Aperi intends to use existing open-storage standards, including the Storage Network Industry Association’s (SNIA’s) Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S), according to the IBM release.

“One of the last pillars of proprietary technology is about to fall,” Jim Stallings, vice president of intellectual property and standards at IBM, said on a Tuesday afternoon conference call. He pointed out that unlike many other areas of software, storage management has held off from embracing open-source technology. “You’re now witnessing the convergence of open source and storage,” he added.
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Stallings said Aperi will release its first reference model some time next year, with all members contributing code to the effort, but he wouldn’t be drawn into specifics.

It’s still sounds like vendors shipping commodity hardware with the same software, but now the software is “free.” That’s probably not any easier for the vendors, but it’s definitely worse for Microsoft. Note that were hard feelings from some of the vendors not in the group.

Update: Symantec has declined to join Aperi.

Microsoft Launches System Center Data Protection Manager as Part of Its Universal Distributed Storage Vision:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the immediate general availability of Microsoft® System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM), the next step forward in the company’s Universal Distributed Storage strategy. Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Windows Server™ Division, will make the announcement during his keynote address at the Storage Decisions conference this evening at 6 p.m. Data Protection Manager promises to lower the total cost of ownership for backup and recovery while enabling entirely new customer scenarios around rapid and reliable recovery and near-continuous protection.

“Backup has been the bane of IT professionals for decades,” Muglia said. “Disk-based data protection provides a revolution in providing continuous backup and fast recovery of data. Data Protection Manager will help usher in this new era of disk-based data protection.”

The release of DPM is a step closer toward the realization of Microsoft’s vision for Universal Distributed Storage, aimed at delivering distributed storage solutions built on industry standard hardware.
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At an estimated retail price of $950 (U.S.), which includes one server license and the management licenses to protect three file servers, Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager is designed to provide customers with more rapid and reliable recovery and less potential data loss relative to tape backup. DPM offers customers and partners an effective backup and recovery solution that significantly lowers IT costs and the risk of permanent data loss and increases productivity and efficiency. More information on DPM and industry partners can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/dpm.

In addition:

Microsoft also announced the beta release of Windows Storage Server 2003 R2, targeted for release to manufacturing by the end of 2005, and the company’s intent to build solutions from storage industry partners.

There’s also a Q&A with Bob Muglia.