Q: What is Microsoft System Center? Maybe you own it already!??!
Answer: As I travel around and meet with customers and partners I’m exposed to many different types of environments. One thing I am noticing is the adoption of Microsoft System Center is spreading like wildfire!
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
…I worked for a large sporting goods retailer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During my tenure with the firm IT Service Management became a large focus. As the years passed our Information Technology Department grew up and thus the shift in focus. Being a large Microsoft Windows Server shop naturally the focus for us moved towards the legacy Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) Framework.
Many IT shops likely are already using a component or two of the System Center Suite – It’s made of a couple different pieces of software and they have friendly acronyms…Operations Manager (SCOM), Orchestrator (SCORCH), Service Manager (SCSM), Data Protection Manager (SCDPM), Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and Configuration Manager (SCCM). The most common component being Configuration Manager (This is the legacy SMS) – SCCM is the piece that’s used for managing end points, patch management, gold image deployment…etc. I’ve added a poll below to get your thoughts on what components are being used in the field.
The interesting piece of this is that with Windows Server 2012 Microsoft updated the licensing model. Before end users purchased each component of the System Center Suite ala carte. Meaning you would purchase licenses of SCOM and SCCM and owned none of the other modules. With System Center 2012 you now own everything if you own one! So, when you get System Center you get all of the components of System Center.
In future post(s) we’ll get deeper into each component but for now tell me what you’re using! Here’s the link to my Veeam Whiteboard Friday where I talked in great depth on the different pieces of System Center as well as did a live demo!
Modern Day and Real World IT... 