From disparate products, Microsoft moves toward a unified suite
System Center was first introduced as a concept in 2003, consisting of MOM and SMS, with an envisioned reporting product unifying information between the two. Since then System Center has gone through several product releases, but the components have been released on their own timelines using the System Center name as a moniker but not as a unified product. As System Center has grown, its products have largely operated independently, with only a few minor connections between the products.
Recently, with the addition of Service Manager and Opalis/Orchestrator, the connections have become deeper. To solve Microsoft’s customer problems, System Center needs to operate as a product itself and not a collection of products. Customers and partners need consistent user experiences, centralized data storage and common data models, consistent APIs for automation, and many other things.
With all of the System Center components now shipping on the same schedule starting with 2012 and going forward, System Center is really the “product,” and Microsoft has reorganized its engineering and marketing teams internally to recognize this. Anticipate seeing more integration as the MVP expertises are also realigned and System Center 2012 is released. And if Microsoft does it right, the System Center 2012 product release will only be the beginning.
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