Virtual Machine Manager

Microsoft To Release System Center VMM 2008 Soon

July 16, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Diane Prescott, Product Manager, System Center at Microsoft posted an article on the official SC blog today sharing that the launch of the next version of Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is imminent, specifically in Q4 2008. The beta was formally introduced by the company end of April 2008.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 will be available as a stand-alone product, while the current version only comes bundled with Server Management Suite Enterprise. Prescott also said something about the pricing structure:

“[SCVMM 2008] will follow the licensing model set forward by the SMSE. It will be sold as a per-device enterprise server management license (ML) and will include rights to the management server. Because we’ll be selling the VMM 2008 enterprise server ML on a per-device basis, which makes sense in the context of virtualization, we’ll be targeting a price which will be approximately 10-15% less than the SMSE at that time it’s generally available. Additionally, because of the new value and functionality being added to the various System Center offerings over the next year, including VMM, Operations Manager and Configuration Manager, we will be implementing a price increase to the SMSE of approximately 10-15% in the same time frame. We’re still working on the specifics regarding the pricing and licensing of VMM 2008 and the SMSE and we’ll have further details to share in early August.”

Next to support for Hyper-V, SCVMM 2008 will also offer management capabilities for VMware ESX environments, allbeit through VirtualCenter.

Microsoft

Microsoft Management Summit 2008: Birth Of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 Beta

April 30, 2008 by Robin Wauters 2 Comments

At the Microsoft Management Summit 2008 in Las Vegas, the Redmond-based software giant released its virtualization management platform, now named System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, into public beta testing. The release comes well within the 60 to 90 day window Microsoft promised after the public beta delivery of its ‘Viridian hypervisor’, now formally known as Hyper-V. So where’s the beef?

The new platform enables customers to configure and deploy new virtual machines and to centrally manage their virtualized infrastructure, whether running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 or VMware ESX Server.

Microsoft’s hypervisor and virtualization management platform will likely be used predominantly by Microsoft-centric customers in Windows-centric environments (for your reference: Microsoft owns about half of the server OS space so that’s not too bad a proposition), but support for VMware ESX will be welcomed by many as well (VMM 2008 connects to Virtual Center’s public web service APIs to provide support for most day-to-day administrative tasks on VMware, including VMotion), although most critics are already pointing to the lack of live migration capabilities in SCVMM 2008.

A number of partners, including Brocade, Dell, EMC, Emulex, HP, NetQOS, QLogic and Quest, announced they will deliver management packs enabled for PRO. These management packs enable partners and customers to integrate their domain-specific knowledge directly into Virtual Machine Manager and further integrate physical and virtual management.

[Source: Virtualization Review]

Microsoft Puts Forth System Management As Key Differentiator In Virtualization Technology

April 22, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Microsoft is targeting system management as a way to differentiate itself from competitors in the virtualization market, the company reportedly stated today, as reported by PC World.

Anticipating that the market for virtualization software, such as Microsoft’s Hyper-V, eventually will be commoditized, the company sees management as the key revenue opportunity for competitors offering server virtualization, said Windows Enterprise and Management Division General Manager Larry Orecklin, speaking to reporters on Microsoft’s campus Tuesday.

Microsoft is apparently so keen on making management the corner stone of its virtualization strategy that it plans to open up management for other virtualization platforms, such as VMware and XenSource, with its System center Virtual Machine Manager tool, which it released last September.

Also interesting to note:

Microsoft plans to outline its virtualization strategy further at its Microsoft Management Summit next week, said Orecklin, who suggested Tuesday that a beta of Virtual Machine Manager with support for Hyper-V and VMware ESX also will be available at that time.

[Source: PC World]