MMS keynote April 21 2010 discusses Configuration Manager 2007 R3, vNext, and more
Brad Anderson’s discussion Wednesday morning in Los Vegas highlighted the direction for System Center Configuration Manager and managing desktops, including in and through the cloud.
- The first focus, on lowering costs through power management. Configuration Manager 2007 R3, in beta beginning today, “goes green” by incorporation power management into Microsoft’s systems management product by integrating with the power management capabilities available with Windows 7. Testing has shown savings of $30-$60 annually per PC – which can turn into a lot of cash for larger organizations.
- The second area is simplifying desktop management through integration with Citrix and Hyper-V. Did that get your attention?
- Next is convergence of security and management, through integration with Forefront Endpoint Protection capabilities into Configuration Manager. The install program makes it easy to implement Forefront by removing other security products you’ve previously deployed.
- Yesterday Bob Muglia discussed cloud computing (see http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/60323). Brad talked about how Configuration Manager will provide a path to the cloud through Windows Intune (announced Monday and previously known as System Center Online). Intune is an integrated security and management solution allowing you to administer desktops through the cloud, and will be available on a subscription basis.
- The fifth area is a focus on the user, using Service Manager to simplify integration across System Center and Active Directory.
The keynote included a demo of Configuration Manager vNext, which is scheduled to go into beta in May. In vNext Microsoft simplifies the hierarchy and continues work on DCM (Desired Configuration Management), allowing it to remediate if you want it to. vNext also focuses on managing state-based applications, and has a redesigned console interface similar to Operations Manager 2007, incorporating the Outlook look and feel. Unlike the peek we had yesterday of VMM vNext, the console does not include the ribbon, at least not yet. Given that I’m not a big fan of the ribbon, that’s ok with me.
