The Next wave of Client Management begins now……

Today we are announcing the opening of the Technology Adoption Program nominations for the next release of System Center Configuration Manager. 
The Technology Adoption Program is designed to provide a consistent experience for Microsoft customers to obtain real-world customer feedback on Microsoft pre-release products. 
There are many benefits for our TAP customers, to name a few:

• Lead the market by adopting critical enabling technologies early
• Influence and shape the final product by providing early and deep feedback
• Connect with expertise to obtain a deep understanding of strategic emerging technologies

Building on over 14 years of systems management industry experience, Configuration Manager (formerly SMS) is the world leader in software distribution, OS deployment, HW/SW inventory and more.  Moving forward, there are both new capabilities as well as enhancements to existing product functionality that form the investments for engineering. 
Over the coming year the next release of Configuration Manager will move into a public beta.  Even at this early stage, we want to ensure that it is the highest quality release possible; the TAP program helps significantly in this effort. 
I would like to highlight for you briefly what the investment pillars for this next release are, and over the coming months we will continue to go deeper on these areas with different product folks through interviews, online chats and other forms of content.
The next release of Configuration Manager will focus on a few main areas:

• Improving client management experiences through enhanced, integrated software distribution models.  The next release of Configuration Manager will provide a framework for the right application format to be delivered to the user based on who they are, the device they are using, and their connection.
• Infrastructure improvements are also a main focus.  Optimizing site hierarchy, replication and content distribution on the backend.  For the managed client, improving client health and remediation capabilities will ensure that when a system is managed, it remains healthy and secure.  Part of this is also improving the Admin experience.  In the past we did this by reducing mouse clicks to get through an activity.  This is only part of the process.  Adding security models to enable role based administration, as well as improving the Admin console experience will ensure that Admins are more efficient everywhere.
• In addition, other areas of focus include expanding device management scenarios, model based configuration management and improving patch management services; just a few of the places we are focused on development.

We hope to see a strong interest in this TAP program, and we want to ensure as many organizations are engaged as possible.  The team is limited in resource, and as a result, not every TAP nomination can be accepted.  Completion/Submission of the TAP nomination form is not a guarantee of acceptance.  All completed nominations are evaluated to ensure the right fit, priorities and alignment of goals are present. 
The TAP is not your only avenue to access the next release of ConfigMgr.  There are other ways you be able to experience the product before release, such as the public beta programs.  Stay tuned to this blog for further announcements.
Link to Nomination Survey is here.
More information about the Microsoft TAP program can be found here.
System Center product information can be found here.
Thanks for your time
Jeff Wettlaufer 
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center

Try System Center Operations Manager Management Packs for SharePoint Server 2010 Beta and SharePoint Foundation 2010 beta

Management Packs allow users to monitor SharePoint 2010 with System Center Operations Manager. SharePoint Foundation Management Pack and SharePoint Server 2010 Management Pack enables monitoring of SharePoint Foundation 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Search Server 2010 (These is separate management pack for FAST search), Project Server 2010 and Office Web Apps. Once management pack is imported to System Center console, based on console configuration it automatically discovers what SharePoint bits or servers are installed in the environment that is being monitored and start monitoring those components.
These 2010 management packs will be released to System Center Operations manager catalog and will also be released to web along with SharePoint 2010 RTM.

Out of box experience
SharePoint Management Packs monitors all prominent services, Shared Services, SharePoint Health Analyzer rules, Web Applications and SharePoint Servers. In SharePoint 2010 you can use it to monitor both physical (servers and services running on those servers) and logical (Shared Services, Web Application etc.) of SharePoint. You can monitor multiple farms, and even fix some issues automatically by running out of box tasks. You can also write your own tasks using System Center Wizard or Windows PowerShell script to enable this self-healing.
Primary takeaway of SharePoint 2010 MP is depth and breadth of monitoring and rapid detection and resolution. Here’re the improvements compared with the previous product.

	Management Packs for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007	Management Packs for SharePoint 2010	Change
Discoveries	5	16	↑300%
Classes	10	133	↑1293%
Monitors	28	240	↑300%
Rules	235	107	↓45%
Reports	27	9	↓33%
SPHA Rules	NA	100+	↑100%
TechNet KAs	NA	~150	↑100%

These numbers illustrate significant improvements over 2007 management pack. 1200% and 300% change in number of classes and discovery represents improvement in depth and breadth of monitoring. Change in number of monitors indicates improvement in granularity of monitoring that enables quick isolation of issues. Detailed knowledge articles represent rapid diagnosis and resolution. Did you also notice knowledge articles are on TechNet, which means we will be able to improve these articles based on your feedback even after release!
In 2007 you can just monitor, one farm with multiple servers and some services. Diagram view below reflects a typical 2007 monitoring. Anything that is crossed was not available in 2007 management pack and remaining had limited depth of one additional level.


In 2010 you can monitor multiple farms, multiple servers, services, shared services, SharePoint Health Analyzer rules (Which saves you a trip to central admin which also means that System Center Operation Manager console is your one stop shop for all monitoring requirements) and web applications.
Server Monitoring
Service Monitoring


Share Service Monitoring
SharePoint Health Analyzer monitoring (One stop shop for both native and external monitoring)

Web Application Monitoring

Download Management Pack Beta for SharePoint 2010

SharePoint Foundation 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=43d5ee9a-b9a6-441d-a35e-8a7b9b15e20c
SharePoint Server 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=c8a9d749-b7a8-412a-b2db-f3e464ed3fcf

Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 NEW!

Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007

This MP monitors Forefront TMG and includes monitors and rules to track the deployed topology & features, performance, availability, and reliability of Forefront TMG components. With detailed alert information, you can quickly identify and troubleshoot Forefront TMG issues, minimizing time-to-resolution when problems occur. You can collect and analyze performance trends and metrics, and obtain performance information that allows you to manage bottlenecks, identify capacity requirements, and proactively manage your Forefront TMG deployment to resolve issues before problems occur.

Download: Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Updated Management Packs

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Updated Management Packs enables the installation of the Cross Platform Audit Collection Management Packs which allows for the collection and audit of events from UNIX and Linux Servers. These Management Packs also introduces Language Packs allowing better upgrade support in the future.

Download: System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Updated Management Packs

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Audit Collection Services

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Audit Collection Services enables the collection and audit of events from UNIX and Linux Servers. Using Cross Platform ACS, events are collected from the desired Unix/Linux servers and stored in the Audit Collections Services Database. Audit reports for UNIX/Linux Server collected events are included.

Download: System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Audit Collection Services