Skip Links

Network World

  • Social Web 
  • Email 
  • Close

Microsoft faces challenges in expanding management strategy

Software giant looks to lineup against CA, HP, IBM, BMC
By John Fontana , Network World , 05/01/2008

LAS VEGAS – Microsoft this week set its sites on becoming a dominant enterprise management vendor, but experts and users say first it will have to define the scope of its goals, improve the platform, and prove it can be the caretaker of non-Windows systems.

The company laid out its plans this week at its annual Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) for a cross-platform enterprise data-center management infrastructure that includes hooks into Linux and Unix systems.

It’s a major shift from five years ago when Microsoft announced at MMS that management was no longer going to be an afterthought and a comprehensive platform to manage Windows was at the center of a 10-year plan called the Dynamic Systems Initiative.

Just five years later, Microsoft plans to climb the ladder and attempt to compete with the major vendors – CA, HP, IBM and BMC – to manage desktops, datacenter automation and distributed systems regardless of the logo on the software.

Evolution of management
In 2003, Microsoft finally committed to building a management platform for Windows. Five years later, Microsoft wants to be a provider of cross-platform enterprise management systems to rival CA, HP and IBM.
Then
Now
Initiative to finally create a management platform for Windows. Build a cross-platform enterprise management system. 
Systems Management Server (SMS), Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) will be combined into one product to form hub of platform. Re-branded SMS and MOM under System Center banner; tools kept separate and MOM given major facelift; added virtual machine management. 
Virtualization not even on far horizon of road map. Virtualization driving expansion of platform. 
Cross-platform support left to integration via third-party tools, platforms. Linux, Unix support destined to be part of MicrosoftÕs tool set.
Marketing buzz word: Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI).t Marketing buzz word: Dynamic IT. 
System Definition Model (SDM) is proprietary modeling language and key to DSI. SDM out and Service Modeling Language (SML) in. Microsoft helped create SML (with CA, IBM and others) and standardize the SDM derivative; still missing other pieces such as Common Model Library. 
Click to see: Evolution of Microsoft management

"The shift they made was to support heterogeneous environments, and the question becomes how well will they support them," said Steve Brasen, an analyst with Enterprise Management Associates. "Initially [Microsoft's offering] is not as comprehensive as the big four, but over time I would expect their heterogeneous support to improve but the question then will be to what degree."

Partner Content

Explore the Ultrium Edge

The powerful tape technology can address data security with tape encryption as well as long term data protection.

Find out more

Disk and Tape Square Off

Discover what disk and tape really cost -- and which solution provides lower total cost of ownership and optimizes energy use for your organization

Download the White Paper

Don't Fall For The Myths

The Clipper Group explores the truth behind the myths of tape, digging into the misconceptions in the disk vs. tape debate.

Download the White Paper

Will You Add Tape Too?

Over two thirds of disk-only users look to add tape back into storage infrastructure according to recent survey.

Download Survey Information

Comments (1)
Login
Forgot your account info?

From low-cost servers to the data centerBy Microsoft Subnet on May 1, 2008, 8:22 pmMicrosoft is trying to grow up to offer the kind of management needed to be a player in the data center. As well it should, given that x86 machines are no longer...

Reply | Read entire comment

View all comments

Add comment
Anonymous comments subject to moderator approval. Register here for member benefits.
Have a NetworkWorld account? Log in here. Register now for a free account.

Videos

rssRss Feed
Save The Date!
What They Are Saying

IBM spent all that money on a mass rollout of PGP Whole Disk Encryption, just when its discovered that...- Anonymous

Join the Discussion