The second module, Orchestrator, from the 2009 acquisition of Opalis, ties together the various System Center modules as well as integrates with external IT systems. This is what links System Center and the data center into a private cloud. The tightest integration is currently with Microsoft's own products, but Orchestrator can be extended by IT as well as by vendors. Orchestrator discovers existing virtual machine templates, service catalogs, hypervisors and other integrated components, and lets IT build run books of automated tasks.
Other modules have been improved, as well. Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) has multihypervisor support for VMware's vCenter 4.1 and Citrix Xen. Anderson said, "Four years ago we talked to customers about VMware and walked away impressed. We beat VMware on price, but our features were not comparable. We are addressing that gap with this release." He went on to say that both vCenter and Xen are first-class citizens within Systems Center with support for automation and management. Both Operations Manager and Configuration Manager have been improved and support delegated rights management, which is a benefit for organizations that want to delegate management to departments.
All of these improvements and new additions come together in Service Managers Service Catalog and self-service request portal. Here, IT can create simple-to-use self-service request forms that allow business users to request IT services. IT defines a workflow and all of the templates needed to deploy, configure, manage and monitor the service. For repeatable IT service requests like a new SharePoint server, the automated workflow will save time per project and empowers the business to better manage projects.
In all, these changes and improvements bring Microsoft's System Center 2012 and private cloud initiative close in feature parity with the likes of BMC, CA, HP and IBM. Microsoft now needs to focus efforts on enticing server, storage and networking vendors to integrate with System Center. For example, there is no direct integration for the configuration and management with network equipment today. IT or vendors could add the integration themselves via Orchestrator, but, today, it is missing. Even in terms of integrating load balancing, System Center can't discover templates from load balancers like F5's BigIP or Citrix NetScaler. These are shortcomings Microsoft acknowledges, and the company is addressing them with partnerships.
If you are a Microsoft shop and use System Center, which Microsoft claims 50% of Windows Server customers already do, then System Center 2012 is going to be a big improvement for you in both features and licensing. If you are new to automation and orchestration, System Center 2012 may be a viable product set to get you started--especially if you use Hyper-V and Windows Server 2008.
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