Configuration Manager 2007 R2+App-V Compare App-V Only

Configuration Manager 2007 R2 with App-V Integration Clarification

-          Required Components

o   App-V Sequencer for Virtualize the Application and Package Upgrade

o   App-V Client

o   Configuration Manager 2007 R2 Infrastructure

o   No MSI Utility required

-          Preparation Tasks

o   In Configuration Manager, Create a new package from definition file-<Tools\VirtualApp\AppVirMgmtClient.sms> with the default option.

o   Rollout this App-V Client Package.

o   Enable Virtual Application Package Advertisement in Advertised Programs Client Agent.

o   Enable BITS Option in Distribution Point Properties, uncheck the anonymous option.

o   Enable the Virtual Application Streaming Option in Distribution Point Properties.

-          Operation Tasks

o   In Configuration Manager, Create a new “Virtual Application Package” and Browse to the Virtualized Application Package shared folder.

o   Specify the Destination shared folder for store the Virtualized Application Package.

o   Add the distribution point.

o   Control the User Access by the Access Accounts option. (Streaming Only)

o   For Upgrade the existing Virtual Application Package with the Patch or Service Pack, just follow the normal procedure to update the existing Virtual Application Package (and Update the Version for each Application) and Save it by using App-V Sequencer. And then copy all of the updated XML file, SFT file, SPRJ file, OSD files and Icon folder into a new folder under the Virtual Applications Source Shared Folder.

o   In Configuration Manager, Right click the existing Virtual Application Package and click “Update Package”, and Browse to the updated Virtual Application Package by UNC Path. The Delta Package Update will start automatically on the Virtual Application Package Destination Folder, Distribution Point.

o   Re-run the Advertisement to update the delta to Configuration Manager Client Cache (Pushing) and App-V Client Cache (Pushing and Streaming).

-          Scenarios

o   Streaming

§  Create a new Advertisement and choose the “Streaming from Distribution Point” Option

§  Target the Advertisement to the Collection

§  When the Advertisement execute, Configuration Manager client will call the App-V Client to register the Virtual Applications (Start Menu, File Association, Icons). And the Configuration Manager Client will use the “OverrideURL” Registry automatically for update the Virtual Application SFT File Location to the Distribution Point.

§  When the User Launch the Virtual Applications, App-V Client will use the Distribution Point for the Streaming Source. After the Feature Block 1 Streamed into the App-V Client Cache, the Application can be used. And the Feature Block 2 will be streamed into App-V Client Cache automatically in the background. Nothing will be stored in the Configuration Manager Client Cache.

§  If the User doesn’t have the “Read” Permission for this Virtualized Application Package, A Logon Window will appear and ask for the user name and password for access to the Virtual Application Package on the Distribution Point.

§  Once the Complete Virtualized Application Package streamed into the App-V Client Cache, the authorized user can use this Application in Offline mode. And the Unauthorized user cannot use this Application in Offline mode and the Application launch will fail.

§  To Remove the Virtual Application Cache, just delete the Advertisement in Configuration Manager.

o   Streaming-Conclusion

§  The Virtual Application Package will Stream into every client’s App-V Client cache when the authorized user try to launch the Virtual Application on their desktop.

§  Virtual Applications Usage can be assigned by Package Access Account in Configuration Manager.

§  Virtual Applications Usage control are enforced even offline (disconnected).

o   Pushing

§  Create a new Advertisement and choose the “Download from Distribution Point” Option

§  Target the Advertisement to the Collection

§  When the Advertisement execute, Configuration Manager client will download the Virtual Application Package and Store into the Configuration Manager Client Cache, and call the App-V Client to register the Virtual Applications (Start Menu, File Association, Icons). And the Configuration Manager Client will use the “OverrideURL” Registry automatically for update the Virtual Application SFT File Location to the Local Configuration Manager Client Cache.

§  When the User Launch the Virtual Applications, App-V Client will use the Local Configuration Manager Client Cache for the Streaming Source. After the Feature Block 1 Streamed into the App-V Client Cache, the Application can be used. And the Feature Block 2 will be streamed into App-V Client Cache automatically in the background.

§  Any users can use this Virtual Application on that computer online or offline.

§  To Remove the Virtual Application Cache, just delete the Advertisement in Configuration Manager.

o   Pushing-Conclusion

§  The Virtual Application Package will Push into every client’s Configuration Manager Client cache when the advertisement execute and  Stream into App-V Client cache locally when the user try to launch the Virtual Application on their desktop.

§  Virtual Applications Usage cannot be assigned by Package Access Account in Configuration Manager.

§  Virtual Applications Usage control cannot be enforced.

App-V 4.5 Active Upgrade for Office 2007 SP1

Finally, I spent about 2 weeks to finalize the "Real Steps" for Active Upgrade Office 2007 RTM Virtualized Package to Office 2007 SP1. Here are the Steps that I used.

You can download the Step by Step Instruction from this Blog.

Using SCCM DCM to verify the GPO compliance (Part 2)

From the Community request. Here are the GPO Compliance Baseline configuraton without CP Studio.

1. Create a new GPO and import the Security Template or use the existing GPO with the imported Security Template.
2. Select the GPO in the Group Policy Tab, Click Properties.
3. Remember the Unique name of the GPO. Click Cancel Twice.
4. In SCCM Console, Click Desired Configuration Management.
5. Right Click Configuration Item and create a new general configuration item.
6. In the Settings Tab of the Wizard. Click New. And choose WQL Query.
7. Follow the Screenshot for the configuration. (Attached.)
8. Modify the guidName value to be your Security Template GPO Guid.
9. Complete the Configuration Item creation and create a new Configuration Baseline with this Configuration Item.

Using SCCM DCM to verify the GPO compliance (Part 1)

In some cases, we may want to use SCCM DCM to verify that the SCCM Client applied the specified GPO or not. It is a very difficult task because you may not sure that what you should use to query this information from the client machines or Active Directory. And SCCM DCM does not provide the feature for you to import the GPO/Security Template for the compliance checking.

I tried to use Active Directory Query and Registry, but the result is not very well. Finally, I use WMI Query to query the client machine and build the Configuration Baseline Successfully.

Here are the steps to create the Baseline for GPO compliance checking with Silect Software CP Studio.

1. Create a new GPO and import the Security Template or use the existing GPO with the imported Security Template.
2. Select the GPO in the Group Policy Tab, Click Properties.
3. Remember the Unique name of the GPO. Click Cancel Twice.
4. Start the CP Studio on the SCCM Site Server, Click New to start the Golden Master Configuration Baseline Creation Wizard. Click Next
5. In the Enter Machine Credentials Page, Choose Use machine on network and specify the Master computer that applied the GPO. Click Next
6. In the Operating System Requirements Page, Click Next.
7. In the Application Requirements Page, Click Next.
8. In the Application Detail Requirements Page, Choose WMI Queries and click Add WMI Query button.
9. In the Define custom WMI queries windows, choose RSOP, RSOP_GPO in Available namespaces/classes area. Click Retrieve.
10. In the Available records area, choose the GPO that you want to be the configuration baseline. Make sure that the guidName is correct.
11. In the Query definition area, Enable the enable checkbox and guidName checkbox. Highlight the enable checkbox and click Add button. Click OK.
12. In the Application Detail Requirements Page, Make sure that the new created WMI query is selected. Click Next.
13. In the Baseline Properties Page, Specify the Display Name, Description and Save location for that new created baseline. Click Finish.
14. Import the Configuration Baseline into SCCM DCM and Assign the Baseline to the collection.

System Center Partner Solutions

I just completed some PoC for the customers in the last afew months. And these PoC included the solutions from the System Center partners, such as 1E, Jalasoft, AVIcode, excSoftware and Silect Software.

And i want to share my experience on these great partner solutions with all of you.

Operations Manager:

-AVIcode Intercept Studio/SEViewer.

It is a great partner solution for monitor Microsoft .NET in Operations Manager. It enables Operations Manager to monitor .NET Executable Applications, ASP.NET Application and ASP.NET Web Service.etc. We also work with AVIcode to enable the monitoring capability for .NET Remoting. Other than Health monitoring for the .NET Application, AVIcode Intercept Studio/SEViewer also monitor the Job Failure, SLA Performance Violation and missing page.etc. Administrator use the Intercept Studio UI to configure monitoring and performance thresolds for each Application. The AVIcode .NET Enterprise Management Pack also integrate the SEViewer with Operations Manager. We can create and configure the .NET Application Health Model and Distributed Application within Operations Manager, and use Distributed Application Designer to create the Service Model. It is very useful for the Developer who require the tool to detect the issue within their codes and the Administrator who require to monitor the health and Performance of the .NET Applications.

-Jalasoft Xian Io Network Manager.

To monitor Network Device, such as Switches, Routers, Load Balancer and Firewall in Operations Manager, You need to spend so much effort to configure the SNMP collection and alert generation. And you may not get the expected or good result by this manual configuration task. Jalasoft Xian Io Network Manager included the predefined rules and wizards to configure the monitoring for the network devices. Once the Xian Io Network Manager discovered the devices in the network, you can apply the monitoring template or rules to the device, and the monitoring is started. The Rules and Templates can be customize to fit the business requirement by using the Xian Io Network Manager UI. It also included the Management Pack to allow Operations Manager to build the service model that contain the Jalasoft monitored network devices.

-excSoftware

excSoftware developed the Virtual Agent to collect the data by using Syslog, SNMP and CLI from the non Windows devices and applications, such as Linux, Unix, Lotus Domino, Apache.etc. These data will forward to Operations Manager and generate the events and alerts for the administrator to check the health status of the non Windows Devices and Applications. And It covered many non Windows Devices and Applications.

Configuration Manager:

-1E SMSNomad.

1E released so many add on for SMS and Configuration Manager. SMSNomad is one of the add on. In SMS 2003, It enabled the SMS Advanced Client Workstation to be the Local Distribution Point. This reduce the required Server machine in the Small Branch Office. SMSNomad also enables the multicast functionality in SMS and Configuration Manager Software Distribution. It is a great add on for reduce the network traffic of software distribution and Speed up the Software Distribution.

-Silect Software.

To author Operations Manager Management Pack and Configuration Manager Configuration Baseline easily, Silect Software released the MP Studio and CP Studio to help the administrator to author the MP and the Configuration Baseline. For Configuration Baseline, CP Studio included the "Master Image" Capture function to capture the OS and Application Configuration on the Master Machine, And convert to the Configuration Baseline automatically. It also supports to capture the Active Directory data on the machine for the configuration baseline. It reduced the effort to author the configuration items and configuration baselines in Configuration Manager DCM. 

I will share the experience of another Partner Solutions with all of you in the future.

System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 RTM.

• Address critical customer initiated issues, including a roll-up of all hot-fixes.
• Improve the ability to deploy and use Operations Manager 2007.
• Enhance the supportability of Operations Manager 2007. 

What's Included in Service Pack 1?

• New capability to export Operations Manager 2007 diagrams to Microsoft Visio VDX file format.
• New ability to publish reports to multiple locations, such as Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web sites.
• Improved performance and reliability across the product, such as when working with alerts, overrides, and searches.
• Enhanced “advanced search” by improved the ability to search across monitors and rules by their overrides.
• Simplifying the creation of new management packs by allowing users to copy views from existing management packs to an unsealed management pack.
• New ability view performance data through the Operations Manager Web console, and setup filters for desired performance counters to ease searching and navigation.
• New discoveries and views added to the Audit Collection Services (ACS), along with new monitors and alerts to track the health of ACS collectors.
• Enhanced backup and recovery with the introduction of an easier-to-use Secure Storage Backup Wizard.
• … and much, much more!! 

A comprehensive list on what’s included with Service Pack 1 can be found by visiting the What’s New in Ops Mgr 2007 SP1 and What’s Fixed in Ops Mgr 2007 SP1 resources.

The Final Build

Final build number: 6278

Public Availability

• Upgrade: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EDE38D83-32D1-46FB-8B6D-78FA1DCB3E85&displaylang=en
• Evaluation: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C3B6A44C-A90F-4E7D-B646-957F2A5FFF5F&displaylang=en

Where can i go for further information?

A new dedicated SP1 page on TechNet will go live by Monday Feb 25^th, which will provide links to newly available resources, including What’s New, What’s Fixed, SP1 Training Videos, updated documentation, and more!  Any additional information will be posted to the Operations Manager 2007 page of System Center Web. 

Operations Manager 2007 Reports Authoring Guide

The OpsMgr 2007 Reports Authoring Guide just released.

You can download it in this blog post.

My 20th Microsoft KB Article

556056 HOWTO: Create System Center Operations Manager 2007 task to execute a VB Script

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/556056

Adding custom information to alert descriptions and notifications

There are the great post on Kevin Holman's Blog:

Custom Properties for Alert

Descriptions and Notifications:

Event info: (Updated by Daniel)

1.            Publisher Name                   - $Data/PublisherName$

2.            Event Number                      - $Data/EventNumber$

3.            User Name                          - $Data/UseName$

4.            Event Description                 - $Data/EventDescription$

Service Monitor:

Service Name                           - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Name']$

Service Dependencies               - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Dependencies']$

Service Binary Path                  - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='BinaryPathName']$

Service Display Name               - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='DisplayName']$

Service Description                   - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Description']$

Performance:

Counter Value                      - $Data/Context/Value$

Performance Object Name    - $Data/Context/ObjectName$

Performance Counter Name  - $Data/Context/CounterName$

Performance Instance Name - $Data/Context/InstanceName$

Notifications:

$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertId$                                         The AlertID GUID

$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$                                   The Alert Name

$Data/Context/DataItem/Category$                                    The Alert category PerformanceHealth,PerformanceCollection,Operations,EventCollection,StateCollection,SoftwareAndUpdates,Alert,System,Custom,AvailabilityHealth,ConfigurationHealth,SecurityHealth,Discovery,NotificationCategory,Maintenance

$Data/Context/DataItem/CreatedByMonitor$                      True/False

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom1$                                     CustomField1

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom2$                                    CustomField2

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom3$                                    CustomField3

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom4$                                    CustomField4

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom5$                                    CustomField5

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom6$                                     CustomField6

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom7$                                     CustomField7

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom8$                                     CustomField8

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom9$                                     CustomField9

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom10$                                  CustomField10

$Data/Context/DataItem/DataItemCreateTime$                          UTC Date/Time of Dataitem created

$Data/Context/DataItem/DataItemCreateTimeLocal$                  LocalTime Date/Time of Dataitem created

$Data/Context/DataItem/LastModified$                                     UTC Date/Time DataItem was modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/LastModifiedLocal$                               Local Date/Time DataItem was modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntity$                                  ManagedEntity GUID

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityDisplayName$                ManagedEntity Display name

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityFullName$                     ManagedEntity Full name

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityPath$                            Managed Entity Path

$Data/Context/DataItem/Priority$                                               The Alert Priority Number (High=1,Medium=2,Low=3)

$Data/Context/DataItem/Owner$                                                 The Alert Owner

$Data/Context/DataItem/RepeatCount$                                       The Alert Repeat Count

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionState$                                   Resolution state ID (0=New, 255= Closed)

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateLastModified$                        UTC Date/Time ResolutionState was last modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateLastModifiedLocal$                Local Date/Time ResolutionState was last modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateName$                                   The Resolution State Name (New, Closed)

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolvedBy$                                   Person resolving the alert

$Data/Context/DataItem/Severity$                                       The Alert Severity ID

$Data/Context/DataItem/TicketId$                                        The TicketID

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeAdded$                                  UTC Time Added

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeAddedLocal$                           Local Time Added

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeRaised$                                  UTC Time Raised

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeRaisedLocal$                            Local Time Raised

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeResolved$                                UTC Date/Time the Alert was resolved

$Data/Context/DataItem/WorkflowId$                                    The Workflow ID (GUID)

$Target/Property[Type="Notification!Microsoft.SystemCenter.AlertNotificationSubscriptionServer"/WebConsoleUrl$                                                  The Web Console URL

Target/Property[Type="Notification!Microsoft.SystemCenter.AlertNotificationSubscriptionServer"/PrincipalName$                                                    

The principalname of the management server

$Data/Recipients/To/Address/Address$                                                                                                        

The name of the recipient (e.g. the Email alias to which the notification is addressed)

System Center Configuration Manager Beta Exam

Invitation

You are invited to take beta exam 70-401: TS: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuring. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form.

By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

71-401: TS: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuring counts as credit towards the following certification(s).

•  Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuration

Availability

• Registration begins: November 21, 2007
• Beta exam period runs: November 28, 2007– December 18, 2007
• Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.
• Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.
• Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

Registration Information

• You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
• Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: B401
• Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.
  

To register in North America, please call:

•  Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)

Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact:

•  Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientInformation.asp

Test Information and Support

You are invited to take this beta exam at no charge.
You will be given four hours to complete the beta exam. Please plan accordingly.
Find exam preparation information: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-401.mspx

System Center Capacity Planner 2007

There are 2 news about System Center Capacity Planner 2007.

1. It will be available for everyone now and not just technet subscribers.

2. The sharepoint model is being release in a couple of days in beta.

System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008

The new product in System Center Family-Mobile Device Manager 2008.

What is Mobile Device Manager 2008? 
Mobile Device Manager 2008 is a solution that gives organizations enhanced on-device security and over-the-air policy enforcement. It allows IT professionals to more easily manage phones within the organization, and gives mobile employees access to confidential information on corporate networks with firewalls.  
 
What does Mobile Device Manager 2008 do? 
Helps protect sensitive information if the device is lost or stolen
Performs instant* remote device wipe to help reduce security risks
Provides security enhanced behind-the-firewall access to mobile users
Helps lower maintenance and troubleshooting costs and management complexity
Provides greater scalability with support for thousands of users on a server
Gives IT professionals a robust development platform, improved reliability, and better application access and control for Windows Mobile devices
 

Here are the Information about the product:

Website: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/mobile/default.mspx

Overview: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/mobile/evaluation/overview.mspx

MCTS: Operations Manager 71-400 Beta Exam

From the Certification Blog:

By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

Please remember that participation in the beta process is completely voluntary and Microsoft makes no promises or guarantees regarding the beta exam process. You can expect to receive your score on the beta exam within 12 weeks of taking the exam, although in some instances, beta exams may take longer to score and your results may be delayed.

71-400: TS: Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager, Configuring counts as credit towards MCTS: System Center Operations Manager, Configuration.

Availability

• Registration begins: October 4, 2007
• Beta exam period runs: October 4, 2007– October 26, 2007
• Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.
• Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.
• Regional Restrictions: India, China, and Pakistan

Registration Information

• You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
• Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: TSCCM
• Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.
• To register in North America, please call Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)
• Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact: Prometric

Test Information and Support

• You are invited to take this beta exam at no charge.
• You will be given four hours to complete the beta exam. Please plan accordingly.
• Find exam preparation information: Prep guide not available yet

Exam topics:

Configuring System Center Operations Manager 2007

• Configure notification
• Manage roles
• Configure System Center Operations Manager options
• Discover and deploy agents within a trusted Active Directory (AD) forest
• Discover and deploy agents to non-AD systems

Deploy and configure Management Packs

• Import a Management Pack
• Configure overrides
• Configure a self-tuning threshold
• Migrate a Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Management Pack to System Center Operations Manager 2007
• Configure diagnostics and recoveries for a rule or monitor

Build and deploy custom Management Packs

• Configure security options
• Configure discovery for Management Packs
• Create monitors and rules
• Create a distributed application
• Create a synthetic transaction

Maintaining System Center Operations Manager

• Maintain System Center Operations Manager infrastructure
• Create views
• Create tasks
• Fail over from Root Management Server (RMS)
• Back up and restore System Center Operations Manager
• Managing and maintaining reports

Configuring client monitoring

• Configure Audit Collection Service (ACS)
• Configure Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM)
• Configure Collective Client Monitoring (CCM)
• Configure Business Critical Client Monitoring (BCCM)

System Center Virtual Machine Manager: Huge Announcements!

The News From the Windows Virtualization Team Blog:

Hi - this is Chris Stirrat and I run the team that built System Center Virtual Machine Manager (also known as SCVMM or “Carmine”).  I very excited to share a couple of HUGE announcements with everyone around virtualization and SCVMM.

First - I am extremely proud to announce that after 2 short (OK - it didn't always seem short...) years of customer focused development, SCVMM has been officially released!  It has been a long road and as many of our TAP and Beta customers can attest, we have come a long way.  It is not easy bringing a competitive version 1 product to market, especially in a newer industry that is moving quickly. 

Here are some of the interesting details of the release:

• Throughout the release we have had over 32 TAP (Technology Adoption Partners) customers and 10 partners which have been testing, giving great feedback and creating solutions with the beta versions of SCVMM
• Microsoft's own internal IT group has been managing 100% of their virtual environment (86 physical hosts running 1224 VMs) in production with SCVMM since Beta2 with no (that is zero) impact on their SLAs
• To date we have over 20,678 public beta users of SCVMM
• SCVMM is available in 9 different languages

In addition here are some quotes from our Beta and TAP customers:

· “VMM came through for us "Big Time", I would have been doing this for many hours, 5 min opposed to many hours, what more can I say! VMM was the only reason I got sleep last night!”

· “We hadn’t used System Center software before, but we found it fairly easy to move from Linux to Virtual Server and adopt Virtual Machine Manager because VMM is so well designed and easy to administer.”

· “Virtual Machine Manager handles so many tedious, yet critical, VM infrastructure tasks.  It makes VM management so easy, we’re ecstatic.”

· “System Center Virtual Machine Manager provides us with many important benefits.  Its centralized management and sophisticated provisioning capabilities make it so much easier for us to manage and enhance our virtual infrastructure.”

I want to thank all the TAP and Beta customers for all the great feedback – it has been a great partnership for us.  The release is now publicly available at www.microsoft.com/scvmm, with general availability in October. 

Second – we are announcing the pricing/licensing for SCVMM. 

We learned from our customers that managing virtualization encompasses many things – provisioning, monitoring, optimizing, reporting, patching and backup/restore.  As we looked at the Microsoft assets across these areas, we created integration with some of the existing tools to help cover all the key scenarios for virtualization.  We have tight integration with Operations Manager to provide health monitoring, performance monitoring, eventing/alerts, and ultimately the combination of SCVMM and Operations Manager provides a powerful solution to continually optimize your virtualization environment.  In addition, with Operations Manager we can see a full picture of how an application running in a VM.  We monitor the application and combine that data with the VM and physical host data. For patching the VMs and images, we have integration with Configuration Manager that allows you to patch VMs including the ones not currently running.  For backup/restore, we have integration with Data Protection Manager that allows you to backup at the physical host level (which includes all the VMs running on that host).

In order to make it easy for customers to manage their virtual environments and cover the key scenarios – we are announcing a new license to cover that situation.  We are announcing the System Center Management Suite Enterprise license which gives you everything you need to manage you virtual environment at a very reasonable price of $860 per physical host. 

You get:

• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 license
• Enterprise server management licenses for System Center Configuration Manager 2007, System Center Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Data Protection Manager 2007.

One key thing to note – the license is on the physical host and includes unlimited VMs running on that host.  Also – one question I get pretty often is whether or not SCVMM requires the other tools in order to run.  The answer is no – SCVMM is stand-alone and does not require the other System Center tools in order to run.  Having said that – there are many scenarios that are better and “light-up” when SCVMM is used in conjunction with the other System Center tools.

Third – we are announcing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Workgroup edition, which will be available in January 2008.  This edition is aimed at mid-market customers and allows them to manage up to five physical host servers and an unlimited number of virtual machines.  The only restriction in the software is the number of physical hosts you can manage (5) but everything else is full functionality.  The System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Workgroup edition will be priced at $499 and will be available in January.

The fourth announcement centers on where we are taking SCVMM moving forward.  We are on a long roadmap with SCVMM and continue to get great feedback from customers about where to go.  Our next release is planned to coincide with the release of Windows Server Virtualization (codename Viridian) so that we can expose all the great features it provides.  In addition to Viridian support – we are also adding some key customer driven features. We have heard loud and clear from customers and partners that we need to manage other virtualization environments in addition to Windows virtualization.  They want a single management solution that manages all the different hypervisor technologies. So – in our next set of releases will be adding support for non-Windows virtualization environments – specifically VMWare and Xen.  We listened to you!!!  And when I say we will manage these environments I mean really manage them – covering all the key scenarios they offer.  From a single console and a single command-line you will be able manage Virtual Server, Viridian, VMWare and Xen.

We are finalizing the project plans and will announce specific details closer to our Beta release – but we are very excited to get working on the next release.  The team is focused, hardworking and dedicated to providing a great solution.  We have fully recovered from our release celebration and are heads down cranking away.

For more information on Virtual Machine Manger and other Microsoft virtualization products please visit these sites www.microsoft.com/scvmm and http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization. 

RTM'ed

Configuration Manager 2007 and Virtual Machine Manager 2007

JUST RTM'ed...

Let's Celebrate~

My 18th, 19th Microsoft KB Released!

You cannot change the destination folder when install the Operations Manager 2007

555960

Addlocales value doesn't work in Inventory Tool for Microsoft Update v3

555961

My 17th Microsoft KB Released!

 "Data Cannot be Updated in Data Warehouse" error after the new Root Management Server Promotion

555959 

My 16th Microsoft KB Released!

"Loading Reporting Hierarchy Failed" error after the new Root Management Server Promotion

555950

Some Personal Topics

Currently, I'm very busy to work on the OpsMgr 2007 RDP and Service Manager Beta1 TAP Projects with Microsoft,

So, i can't update my blog...

Although i can learn and get so many information and knowledge from Microsoft. However, I'm still worrying about my career.

There are 2 Companies looking for me to join their companies for their Asia and Hong Kong Team (Storage Vendor and Australia ICT). But, the postition is the Post-Sale Solutions Architect and Specialist.

I want to focus on the Pre-Sale more than Post-Sale.

Their packages are very attractive.If i need $$, i should go for these companies. However, I really want to work on pre-sale and System Center focused job. (I'm the Solutions Consultant for System Center in this moment)

And now, I'm considering to move to other country and work on System Center focused job. It should be a great experience for my career development.

But i have no idea, any opportunies for me to have this kind of job in other country. 

If you have any suggestion or head count. Please let me know ..haha