The next keynote just wrapped up and there was a lot of good information. Here’s our top 9 items we heard in order of importance:
1) System Center Roadmap: New versions in 2011 for Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Configuration Manager, Service Manager R2, Windows Intune V1. New versions in 2011: Data Protection Manager, Forefront Endpoint Protection, System Center Essentials.
2) ConfigMgr vNext: Configuration Manger – looks like Operations Manager 2007 R2. The new UI for ConfigMgr vNext looks OM based (however, there was no ribbon in the version shown). Major sections appeared to be Administration, Software Library, Monitoring, and Assets/Compliance. Beta due in May.
3) Service Manager & Compliance: Built-in with Service Manager. Showed a demonstration of PCI and SOX compliance information within ServiceMgr. The product was released on Monday and there are already 57 production environments installed.
4) The Cloud: Windows Intune announced on Monday and currently in beta for release next year. Provides a monthly subscription for desktop management and security online. First case use mentioned – home systems. First polling question for today: “Do you plan on investing in cloud solutions? Is the cloud a solid direction, or is it vapor?”
5) Windows 2008 R2 SP1 updates: Dynamic memory (assigning a starting amount of memory on a VM, and a maximum level), and Remote FX (using the GPU to offload graphics workload instead of the CPU to free up the processor).
6) Windows 7 – effective last month there were 90 million Windows 7 systems patched by Windows update.
7) Configuration Manager 2007 R3 – In beta today, new functionality around Power Management. For our second polling question today we plan on asking: “Is power management interesting to you? If so, is it due to decreased cost/savings of energy or decreased CO2 emissions?”
8) Configuration Manager integrated with XenApp: New functionality to provide a new program for XenApp and integrating XenApp publishing into ConfigMgr.
9) MMS 2011: March 21-25th at the Mandalay Bay!
If you have thoughts on the polling questions above and you are at MMS please pull Cameron Fuller aside if you find him!