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| 25 Mar '08 - 08:54 | | news source ~ In-House Exclusive: System Center Online Services (update)
It is more than a year ago that we first blogged about System Center Online Services. Larry Orecklin, at the time General Manager for the Windows Enterprise and Management Division at Microsoft, first informed partners of the upcoming Online Services at the System Center Partner Airlift in January of 2007.At the time, Larry showed his vision of what probably now is know as the "Software + Services" initiative within Microsoft. The System Center Online Services would be a set of services on the internet. The services would extra value to current and new customers by adding functionality from "the cloud" in two flavours; (A) finished services and (B) attached services. The first one would bring products that are not available as standalone products and the second one would bring products complimentary to the full products which companies run within their infrastructures.
During that week in January, Jeff Campbell, just appointed as Director of those System Center Online Services, held a 75-minute session with more details about the roadmap of those services. He said that 2007 would be the year that Microsoft would build the underlying "framework" and that end of 2007 / begin 2008 would bring the first System Center Online Services to market. (Click more to read the full article and see the screenshots!)
Jeff had three real examples of Services in development. The first was called the "System Center Online Connection Pack", which would bring enhanced asset management features to Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM). It would be the new rebranded, re-launched (acquired) AssetMetrix service with scheduled or on-demand catalog updates and integrated license reporting for MLS customers.
The second example was called the "System Center Microsoft License Manager". It was being built as a finished service, which would solve the problem that Microsoft Licenses are “complex” and “hard to Manage”. Customers would input their license pairs and agreements and the service would output a descriptive report.
The last one that Jeff talked about, was called "System Center Asset Inventory Services" and the offering would be offered as part of MDOP to SA customers only. It would be able to do an inventory / discovery of all software and would provide software reports grouped by software family, title, versions, etcetera. the technology acquired from AssetMetrix would also be underlying.
So, we are a year ahead and where do we stand at the moment?
Well, if we look back, we can see that one real service has been provided in the System Center Online Services space; System Center Asset Inventory Services. If you are an MDOP customer, you can today activate your AIS subscription and access the benefits.
What about the System Center Online Connection Pack for SCCM 2007 and System Center Microsoft License Manager? There seems to be no real (visible) action there. Ofcourse, the Microsoft Management Summit is only one month from now, and we can expect some announcements there.
The key question is whether or not the System Center Online Services strategy is the same as roughly 12 months ago. Is Microsoft working on any other services in the management space? In my opinion, it seems not enough to only re-market the AssetMetrix technology in one or two ways. Also, the Licensing services seem to be more in the benefit of Microsoft than their customers.
The online strategy could be a real advantage for Microsoft in the management space if they get their offerings and "time to market" right. Most other competitors in this space (HP, Tivolo, etc) are still focussed on the on-premise software market. Developing online services, complimentary to the on-premise software, which really helps customers, could be the next big thing in "infrastructure management" since MOM/SMS transformed into the System Center portfolio of today.
We'll keep tracking this effort and hopefully can update you during the Microsoft Management Summit. Techlog will be attending with two journalists to give you live coverage as the event happens!
SC Online Services: Portal
SC Online Services: Software Report
SC Online Services: Create License Profiles
SC Online Services: Upload License Pairs
SC Online Services: Volume License Management
Lees meer over System Center Online Services in deze nederlandstalige blog post!