Microsoft expands on plan to simplify datacenter

Microsoft will soon begin delivering software components for an initiative aimed at reducing datacenter complexity. The goal is to make it easier for companies to deploy and manage applications across large groups of servers, the company said this week.

Dubbed the Dynamic Systems Initiative, the project aims to alleviate what Microsoft views as a "crisis in the datacenter," said Bob O'Brien, group product manager of Microsoft's Windows Server division. IT managers face a profusion of data, devices, applications and personnel, and need technology that will help them integrate and run their intricate environments, he said.

Microsoft's project centers on a software architecture specification for developers designed to make applications more flexible and self-descriptive. The first deliverable based on the initiative, according to O'Brien, will be Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 software, due out April 24. Other components will roll out over the next several years, with at least one more piece scheduled to arrive before the end of 2003.

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Microsoft will soon begin delivering software components for an initiative aimed at reducing datacenter complexity. The goal is to make it easier for companies to deploy and manage applications across large groups of servers, the company said this week.

Dubbed the Dynamic Systems Initiative, the project aims to alleviate what Microsoft views as a "crisis in the datacenter," said Bob O'Brien, group product manager of Microsoft's Windows Server division. IT managers face a profusion of data, devices, applications and personnel, and need technology that will help them integrate and run their intricate environments, he said.

Microsoft's project centers on a software architecture specification for developers designed to make applications more flexible and self-descriptive. The first deliverable based on the initiative, according to O'Brien, will be Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 software, due out April 24. Other components will roll out over the next several years, with at least one more piece scheduled to arrive before the end of 2003.

Microsoft spoke about the program briefly last month during a presentation at its Silicon Valley campus. Further details of the initiative are scheduled be discussed next week at the company's annual Microsoft Management Summit, in Las Vegas.

Microsoft has developed a specification it calls the System Definition Model, which is an XML-based blueprint for building functionality into applications that will allow them to describe their own operational requirements. If an application can describe its own deployment, resource and security requirements, it can be more easily and flexibly managed, O'Brien said.

Microsoft has been working closely with a number of hardware, software and services partners on its Dynamic Systems Initiative, including CA, EDS, HP and Dell, O'Brien said.

Absent from that list are Sun and IBM, each of which is working on its own heavily hyped initiative for addressing computing complexity.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.