Roadmap to Transition to the Cloud, Windows Server 8, System Center Beta Announced

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imageAcknowledging the continued need for on-premises deployments, Satya Nadella, president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft, outlined how partners can use Microsoft’s private cloud solution and announced roadmaps for products to bridge private to public cloud.

The private cloud solution is built on Windows Server, Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center to help customers transition to cloud, on your terms.

Announcements were made at Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) and at the server tools blog Microsoft Delivers New Cloud Tools and Solutions at the Worldwide Partner Conference.

System Center 2012 Beta Manages Apps in Public, Private Clouds

Next week Microsoft will release a new beta of System Center 2012, which helps customers build private clouds and manage applications across both private and public cloud systems.

System Center 2012 will further help partners and customers build private cloud services that focus on the delivery of business applications, not just infrastructure. Operations Manager is a key component that provides end-to-end application service monitoring and diagnostics across Windows, others platforms and Windows Azure.

Operations Manager will fully integrate technology from the AVIcode acquisition for monitoring and deep insights into applications.

The beta will be available next week through this site and more information can be found next week on the System Center blog.

Windows 8 Server

Microsoft also provided an early look at the next version of Windows Server, code-named “Windows Server 8,” which will be the next step in private cloud computing.

Windows Azure Marketplace

The Windows Azure Marketplace will now enable application sales, allowing partners and customers to easily sell, try and buy Windows Azure-based applications.

ISV Business Case For The Windows Azure Platform

Forrester Consulting has released a report entitled “The ISV Business Case For The Windows Azure Platform:” that explaing how software partners deploying solutions on Windows Azure are generating 20% to 250% new revenue by reaching new customers, saving up to 80% on their hosting costs. ISVs are able to reuse up to 80% of their existing .NET code when moving to Windows Azure. The study is available here.

App Controller Gives IT Manager Control of Private, Public Cloud Apps

Demonstrated during Satya Nadella’s keynote today, App Controller is a new solution in System Center that gives IT managers control across both private and public cloud assets (Windows Azure) and gives application managers across the company the ability to deploy and manage their applications through a self-service experience. App Controller was formerly known as “Project Concero”.

Azure Platform Appliance

  • Fujitsu announced in June that they would be launching the Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform (FGCP/A5) service in August 2011, running on a Windows Azure Platform Appliance at their datacenter in Japan.
  • HP also intends to use the appliance to offer private and public cloud computing services, based on Windows Azure. They have an operational appliance at their datacenter that has been validated by Microsoft to run the Windows Azure Platform and they look forward to making services available to their customers later this year.
  • eBay is in the early stages of implementing on the Windows Azure platform appliance and has successfully completed a first application on Windows Azure (ipad.ebay.com).

 

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation

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