Microsoft Moves Systems Management Tools Forward

Published: July 11, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft this week announced the general availability of System Center Essentials 2007, a new suite of systems management tools designed for medium sized businesses. The company also announced plans to release an additional systems management tool, called System Center Remote Operations Manager (ROM) 2007, later this month.

System Center Essentials 2007 is designed to help businesses manage their PCs and servers, the applications that run on them, and the network connections between them. The software was made for midsize business, which Microsoft defines as up to 500 PCs and up to 30 servers.

Essentials 2007 includes an array of dashboards and screens to diagram computer architectures, monitor the performance of computers, receive alerts to potential trouble spots, and troubleshoot things when they start to get out of hand. Other functions include taking inventory of hardware and software, tracking license compliance, and applying updates, patches, and drivers.

With the 2007 release, Microsoft is touting the product's unified reporting capabilities. With a reporting engine based on the SQL 2005 database, Microsoft says users can easily run, review, save, print, and e-mail information about the status of users' IT environments. More than 30 preconfigured reports are shipped with Essentials 2007, covering things like asset inventory, capacity planning, software deployment, and update compliance. Users can also receive alerts to changes in their computers' status via e-mail, pagers, and SMS text messages.

Essentials 2007 requires Windows Server 2003 SP1 or R2 or Small Business Server 2003 SP1. In either case, the computer must also have IIS 6.0 and BITS 2.0 loaded. The software can be used to manage Windows client and Windows server operating systems, running either in a physical or a virtual environment.

Pricing for Essentials 2007 starts at $2,000, which includes the SQL Server Express Edition database, or $2,929 for Essentials 2007 with SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition. These prices entitle the user to manage up to 10 servers and up to 50 PCs. Users can get additional management licenses (MLs) to monitor additional computers. MLs for servers start at $100 each, while MLs for PCs start at $100 for a pack of five.

Microsoft also announced ROM, a new Systems Center product that is designed to work with System Center Essentials and allow administrators to monitor their PCs and servers from a secure remote console. The company says it plans to release the product to manufacturing later this month.

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