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Quick impressions from MMS '07

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This years' MMS is quite interesting with many new products in System Center family and other products around manageability/operations.

Several quick impressions:

  • The partner space in Expo booth is getting every year bigger and bigger. This only proves that Microsoft products are becoming more extensible and partners take advantage of that. MS is delivering a platform/framework that not only partners but also users/customers can build from quite complex management solutions. I was surprised to see such companies like CA, Novell and apparently they also have some products that integrate with System Center. No longer do you buy a product that it is hard to extend. I did not have all that much time to visit all partner booths, but those to watch out for: iWaveIntegrator (OM connectors), Quest (extending System Center), EMC (SMARTS connector - monitoring network with OM07)
  • Being an MS consultant I should know all products my company produces... Well, there were recently so many acquisitions, new initiatives that it is hard to follow up just in the mngmt&ops area! Consider ForeFront, SoftGrid/Desktop Optimization Pack, SCE, Service Manager etc.
  • From the sessions I mostly visited Confguration Manager-related sessions, as with Ops Manager I am pretty well in the know now. I especially liked these elements:
    • SML -  System Modelling Language- MS initiative approved by DMTF as a standard, lets hope this will drive some standarization into the management space
    • SoftGrid- the idea of application virtualization seems so simple, yet just recently people are beginning to recognize it. In my opinion it is bound to be a hit: fast recovery, no compatibility issues, fast and easy deployment and most of all following "software/IT as a service" paradigm, which I think is key to making IT success
    • Service Manager - previously named "Service Desk". Beta  should be out soon 1-1,5 months, and RTM in 2008. A bit of a long time, especially that this seems to be the first help/service desk system that integrates so tightly with IT infrastructure (AD+SMS datasources in Beta, more to come in RTM: Ops Manager, SQL, custom connector framework). Additionally the service desk portal allowing self-provisioning of IT services/application is a must-see.
    • ForeFront - very nice reporting they have for security compliance, issues. Currently for Exchange (AntiGen), to be extended to Client, Longhorn, SPPS and more)
    • Configuration Manager DCM - now bases on SML, is XML-based and extensive (also via SDK); migration tool from DCM solution for SMS 2003 will be possible
    • Configuration Manager OS Deployment: way better then OSD FP, covers most scenarios and SDK can be used to extend on some nontypical scenarios
    • Configuration Manager SDK - you will now be able to finally do many tasks by automation thru the SDK (e.g. deploy patches with single click, extend Admin UI with XML)
    • Overall SCCM seems to finally "break the record" of SMS being the most complex MS product: UI, SDK, all basic actions are greatly simplified; the only downside I saw was that powershell will not be available in RTM SDK, it will release in V2 of SDK (probably around SP1/R2 timeframe)

 

Off-topic: I went to do some climbing very near san diego. Nice place, but lacks the full wilderness. So afterwards I drove over to the Anza-Borrego dessert. Being mostly in Poland these types of views impress me. And I must say there is something magnetic about dessert-like environments like the one below:

On saturday I plan to go to Joshua Tree, known for pretty cool climbing.