Microsoft System Center Family

What is Microsoft System Center? What does it do? How much does System Center cost?

These, and more, are questions I get at work on a regular basis both from customers and our internal sales guys so I’m going to try and clear it up a little here if I can..

The System Center family helps you to manage physical and virtual environments across data centers, desktops and devices and includes:

Configuration Manager (SCCM)

Operations Manager (SCOM)

Data Protection Manager (DPM)

Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)

System Center Essentials (SCE)

I was going to put together one post for the whole family, but it was turning into a huge, unwieldy beast so I’ve broken it down into separate posts for each family member, links are above..(not all the posts are available yet but please bear with me!)

Microsoft OCS 2007 R2-New Version!

Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 is a great product..it really paves the way for a truly connected, more efficient, easier to live in world of business.

**Update** New features announced by Microsoft! See my post here

There will be a new version announced in November 2008 and released in January 2009, this will be Office Communications Server 2007 R2and one major difference will be it’s transition to a 64bit ONLY platform a la Exchange 2007. This version will transpose your voicemails to text so you can still access them even if in a meeting (or the quiet car of a train..) among other new features.

OCS 2007 R2 will also have more Telephony style features including the ability to hunt groups…

There will then be a completely new version-OCS 2009/2010 (probably 2010)-released to coincide with the availability of Office 14. This along with the expected release of Sharepoint 2010, will help bring a more unified feel to the Office family. It is also expected that this new version will contain inbuilt translation services so if you receive an email in say Spanish, Exchange can read it back to you in English

I’ve seen on The UC Guy’s blog via Mary Jo Foley’s post over at ZDNet that there are more new features expected in OCS 2007 R2 including:

“..a telephony queue system should be included, and will give people dialing in to the system, access to a touchtone menu to have their calls forwarded to the right department/person and so on.”

I can also say that there will be a Boss/Admin console..

Here are some links to my other OCS 2007 related posts:

Tanjay-OCS 2007 Phones

Unified Communications Demo

Video Demo of OCS 2007 R2 Features

Microsoft Zune on Windows Mobile 7?!

Everyone’s favourite CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday confirmed that the Zune software will be available on Windows Mobile

This is the more likely conclusion to the “Zune Phone” rumours, so while we won’t be seeing a Microsoft branded handset, we will have the awesomeness of the Zune on our WinMo devices. Here in the UK, Zune’s are pretty much just a great sounding myth so this should give me a chance to leave the ipod at home once and for all!

Steve gave no word on timescale, but could this be the “new Media Player” expected in WinMo 7?!

I discovered this over at Engadget.

Symantec Backup Exec 12.5

Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 is nearly upon us (06/10/08 – 6th October) and it has got some great new features. A lot of people felt that V12 wasn’t a huge leap forward and so kept their infrastructure on 11d, but I really think Backup Exec 12.5 is worth it…particularly it’s advances in relation to Virtualisation.

New Features:

Perhaps the biggest change is that you no longer require an agent per virtual machine-now it’s an agent per Hypervisor-with an agent for VMware and a separate agent for Hyper-V. This will definitely help keep downs the costs of backup in this modern age!

A blog post by Pat Hanavan, the VP of Product Management in Symantec’s Data Protection Group (the new name for Backup Exec & NetBackup) says:

“Backup Exec understands the structure of the Hyper-V environment and presents the same logical structure in the backup administrator GUI, so backup administrators can manage backup and recovery functions for their physical and virtual systems via the console.”

The full transcript can be found over at http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization

Symantec’s Patent-Pending Granular Recovery Technology gives you individual file level recovery from a single backup-this applies to both Exchange & Sharepoint. This greatly reduces the time and cost associated with these backups.

If your virtualisation plans have been on hold/slow to take off due to worries about cost and/or complexity around backup of VM’s, I think Backup Exec 12.5 will allow you to take that first step into the virtual world.

More info on the new agents for Virtual Server can be found here.

Price & Availability:

The release date for this and Backup Exec System Recovery 8.5 is 06/10/08 (6th of October 2008) and esitmated RRP (in dollars) is:

Backup Exec 12.5 has a suggested price of $995 USD for a media server license. Each additional agent or option can vary in price from $395 USD to $3,195 USD MSRP; Backup Exec System Recovery 8.5 has a suggested price of $1,095 USD per server and $69 USD per workstation.

Backup Exec Infrastructure Manager 12.5:

Another new product due out from Symantec is Backup Exec Infrastructure Manager 12.5. This is powered by Altiris software (following Symantec acquisition in early 2006) and aims to make simplify upgrades & patch management as well as reduce TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) through licence discovery tools. Another cool feature is it’s ability to give you a graphical map of your Backup Exec deployment

Backup Exec Infrastructure Manager 12.5 is due out “late Fall 2008″, so I’d say November is likely to be when it becomes available. It has a suggested RRP of $1995.

Exciting times!