Controlling Costs and Driving Agility in the Datacenteri.dell.com/sites/content/business/solutions/whitepapers/... · 2012-05-22 · CONTROLLING COSTS AND DRIVING AGILITY IN THE DATACENTER

Microsoft Corporation

Published: November 2007

Executive Summary

To help control costs, improve business agility, and remain secure and in

compliance, many IT organizations are taking steps to transition to a truly

dynamic infrastructure. At the same time, many organizations are also planning

to implement the next line of server products from Microsoft, yet are

challenged to find the fastest, least disruptive way to deploy this technology

across the organization. Microsoft® System Center is a family of leading IT

management solutions that helps IT departments proactively plan, deploy,

manage, and optimize an IT environment. And today, Microsoft has made available

the Server Management Suite Enterprise—a license that brings together all of

the capabilities needed to complete comprehensive, life-cycle management of IT

infrastructure.

Controlling Costs and

Driving Agility in the

Datacenter Optimizing Server Infrastructure with Microsoft

System Center

CONTROLLING COSTS AND DRIVING AGILITY IN THE DATACENTER

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is developed

prior to the product’s release to manufacturing, and as such, we cannot

guarantee that all details included herein will be exactly as what is found in

the shipping product. The information contained in this document represents the

current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of

publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it

should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and

Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the

date of publication. The information represents the product at the time this

document was printed and should be used for planning purposes only. Information

subject to change at any time without prior notice. This whitepaper is for

informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,

IN THIS SUMMARY.

Microsoft, Active Directory, SharePoint, Windows, and Windows Server are either

registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United

States and/or other countries.

All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.


Contents

Introduction ................................................................ 4

Optimizing the Datacenter .................................................... 5

Getting To the Value ......................................................... 6

Step 1: Plan .............................................................. 8

Centralized View of Deployed Servers ..................................... 8

Control Costs and Optimize Server Resources .............................. 8

Protect Business Critical Data.......................................... 10

Step 2: Build ............................................................ 10

Maximize Efficiency with Consistent Server Configurations ............... 10

Mitigate Risk with Continuous Data Protection ........................... 11

Meet Service Levels Commitments......................................... 12

Step 3: Deploy ........................................................... 13

Drive Agility with Automated Deployment and System Monitoring ........... 13

Simplify Server Virtualization.......................................... 14

Migrate Data Securely .................................................. 15

Step 4: Manage ........................................................... 15

Centralize Management of Server Networks ................................ 15

Improve Disaster Recovery Capabilities .................................. 16

Completing the IT Management Life Cycle ..................................... 17

The System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise ...................... 17

Conclusion ................................................................. 18


Microsoft System Center 4

Introduction The server infrastructure is the foundation upon which the business processes

that drive an organization’s success are based. IT decision makers are asked to

build this foundation while being under constant pressure to control costs,

deliver infrastructure security, and ensure compliance. At the same time there

is an ever present need to remain agile so as to support changing business

requirements. The key to this process is to meet the challenge of delivering a

truly dynamic IT infrastructure that fully supports the needs of the business.

These challenges can be met with the Microsoft® Infrastructure Optimization

model. This model is shown at a high level in Figure 1. As organizations

transition through the four stages from basic to dynamic, key enhancements are

made to the server infrastructure that deliver benefits that include:

Controlled costs

Enhanced security and compliance

Improved agility

Figure 1 Microsoft infrastructure optimization model

To learn more about the Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization model visit

www.microsoft.com/technet/infrastructure/default.mspx.

Typically, 50 percent of all servers used in organizations are deployed in a

datacenter. This large investment, along with the fact that many organizations

anticipate the upcoming deployment of the Windows Server® 2008 operating system,

Microsoft SQL Server™ 2008, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 into

datacenters, requires a specific focus on this area of the infrastructure.

The line of server solutions from Microsoft can deliver significant value to

organizations and provide the next step businesses will take in upgrading their

server infrastructure. However, these upcoming deployments present IT

departments with some tough questions:

How can these new updates be deployed without disrupting normal business

operations?

How can these new updates be deployed quickly and efficiently?

How can resources within the datacenter be used to deliver the most value?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/infrastructure/default.mspx



Microsoft System Center is designed to meet these challenges while accelerating

the time to value from investments in all parts of an organization’s

infrastructure—from the desktop to the datacenter. It provides complete IT

solutions for servers, desktops, and both physical and virtual devices. This

paper explores the issues presented when upgrading and optimizing a datacenter

and how Microsoft System Center can enable IT departments to resolve these

issues while transitioning to a truly dynamic server infrastructure.

Optimizing the Datacenter The upgrade of the server infrastructure in a datacenter requires a range of

project, process, and technology resources. The most effective deployment and

management strategy considers all physical and virtual systems. Such a strategy

also includes a complete platform perspective that understands both the

Windows®-based environment in which these new upgrades are deployed, and the

integration points with third-party systems.

There are five key areas of capabilities that drive the process to update and

manage the datacenter:

1. Server Deployment and Upgrade

The automation of the configuration and deployment of servers is a key issue

for any upgrade to a datacenter infrastructure. The manual task of creating

server images that meet the configuration and compliance requirements of an

organization can be both time consuming and costly. This has an impact beyond

the initial rollout to include the replacement, expansion, and update of

specific servers. In addition, the ongoing maintenance of servers through patch

and update management demands capabilities that can integrate and automate for

both physical and virtual servers.

2. Virtualization Management

The challenges of server infrastructure management extend to both physical and

virtual environments. Virtualization management includes planning, deploying,

managing, and optimizing the virtual infrastructure. Requirements range from

helping to identify servers that can be converted to virtual servers in order

to make the most of hardware and other resources, to improving the placement of

virtual workloads. As a greater proportion of the datacenter becomes

virtualized, management of these environments becomes an increasingly important

requirement when planning and deploying upgrades.

3. Application Monitoring

Line-of-business application monitoring is an especially important component of

successful datacenter deployments. From front-end clients, to middleware, to

the back-end database, the ability to have a complete view of the application

is critical to the fast diagnosis and resolution of any issue impacting

business processes. Granular monitoring, discovery, and reporting tools are the

keys to ensuring the ongoing health of business applications supported from the

datacenter.

4. Data Protection and Recovery

From vital corporate e-mail in Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 to the data that

drives decision making in Microsoft SQL Server™ 2008, the protection and

recovery of server-based data is key to the success of organizations as they



transition to a dynamic IT infrastructure. The importance of the workloads,

whether executed in a physical or virtual environment, means that a solution

specifically tailored to the needs of a Windows-based server environment is

required. This requirement extends throughout the entire life cycle of the

datacenter from initial deployment to disaster recovery.

5. Compliance and security audit information

One of the most difficult pressures that IT organizations face is to keep

datacenter servers running efficiently while adhering to increased security and

regulatory requirements. This process requires collecting security audit data

and ensuring that servers deployed in the datacenter meet compliance

requirements when deployed and remain compliant over their lifetime.

Given the focus of this paper, more emphasis is placed on the deployment and

upgrade of servers. However, each of the five areas of capability are

applicable and touched upon throughout ultimately supporting a true, end-to-end

life-cycle management approach. In addition, all capabilities are key to

ensuring the value inherent in the investments made in updating server

components can be reached in as short a time as possible.

Getting To the Value When deploying new server capabilities into the datacenter, customers will

choose the methodology that best suits their resources and processes, but the

rollout can be broken down into four major steps, illustrated in Figure 2:

1. Planning how to best take advantage of capabilities and resources

2. Building new server images

3. Deploying the new server infrastructure to the datacenter

4. Managing the server infrastructure and completing ongoing optimization



Figure 2 The process of upgrading datacenter infrastructure follows a

repeatable cycle.

The rest of this paper outlines key considerations at each step of this process

and discusses how Microsoft® System Center can support this process by using

integrated capabilities across the suite, with built-in best practice systems

management knowledge and processes. Key benefits of System Center include:

End-to-end management of datacenter services.

Complete IT systems life-cycle management inside the datacenter and beyond,

including desktops, servers, and devices, in any location—using the same

capabilities used to optimize the datacenter.

Integrated management across both physical and virtual environments.



Step 1: Plan Planning is the first, and often most crucial, phase in

effectively and successfully upgrading the server

infrastructure and datacenter. During this phase, IT

departments must collect vital information about the server

infrastructure, including:

Assessing the current state of the server infrastructure

and datacenter

Identifying each asset that comprises the infrastructure

Identifying the purpose of each asset

Unfortunately, for many organizations, collecting accurate information about

server assets within the datacenter is easier said than done. Every day,

datacenters grow increasingly complex as companies introduce and implement new

technology that can enhance business performance. This trend makes it difficult

for IT departments to maintain accurate records of server assets—a challenge

that also makes it difficult to effectively plan upgrades and enhancements to

the server infrastructure.

System Center delivers the capabilities that make it easy for IT organizations

to collect the information that is needed to acquire in-depth knowledge about

the existing infrastructure.

Gain a Centralized View of Deployed Servers

The first challenge that IT departments face when planning a server upgrade is

to efficiently identify all the assets that make up the network. To do so, IT

departments need a centralized management solution that automatically

identifies a company’s assets. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager

2007 simplifies this task.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 includes hardware and software

inventory capabilities that help IT organizations identify hardware and

software assets, gain insight into who is using those assets, and understand

where the where they are located. Through Asset Intelligence, Configuration

Manager 2007 presents a clear picture of IT assets by providing comprehensive

identification and categorization of the servers, desktops, laptops, mobile

devices, and software installed across both physical and virtual environments.

Within the datacenter, this provides a fast method for understanding what

server devices are in use today and who is using them. A “live” connection

(available in the first service pack for Configuration Manager 2007) also

enables Asset Intelligence to identify new and changing systems and notify IT

administrators of changes if desired. This can significantly reduce the time

spent identifying and tracking assets during and after an upgrade project.

Control Costs and Optimize Server Resources

As organizations move through the phases of the Infrastructure Optimization

model, planning a server upgrade presents an ideal opportunity to cut medium-

or long-term costs by optimizing the use of server resources within the

datacenter. Virtualization is one of the most important trends that can impact

server resource optimization by changing how IT departments provision and

manage servers and workloads. Virtual machine technology decouples the physical

hardware from software so that IT departments can run multiple virtual machines

on a single physical server. As a result, IT departments realize many benefits.



For example, servers running virtual machines can operate at 60 percent

utilization or greater, depending on the availability requirements of the

workloads. IT departments can also speed response times to business needs

because new machines don’t have to be set up manually and can be provisioned

much faster. In addition, by consolidating workloads and minimizing the number

of servers in the datacenter, IT departments can reduce costs.

Together, Microsoft System Center Operations Manger 2007 and Microsoft System

Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 can help IT departments identify how

servers are being used, how each server is performing, and how each server can

be used to its fullest potential. System Center Operations Manager 2007

monitors server health and stores vital performance information in a database

that System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 can access and analyze. Virtual

Machine Manager 2007 then generates a consolidation report that provides an

easy-to-understand summary of the long-term performance of a workload. As shown

in Figure 3, this information helps project teams make educated decisions about

which servers would be ideal candidates for consolidation. Also, information

about the performance of the hardware running virtualized applications provides

data that decision makers need to smartly move those applications off one

server onto another, re-image the server, and then return the applications—all

while maintaining 100 percent availability of the datacenter resources.

Figure 3 Virtualization candidate report in Virtual Machine Manager.



Protect Business Critical Data

IT administrators must complete server upgrades with minimal disruption to

business operations. The first step involves a comprehensive data backup plan—a

task that the System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise enables IT

departments to complete with ease.

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 helps companies plan a

server upgrade with confidence by enabling IT departments to reliably back up

existing data. System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 was specifically

built to protect and recover:

Microsoft SQL Server™

Microsoft Exchange Server

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server

Microsoft Virtual Server

Microsoft Active Directory® directory service

Windows file services

With a foundation built on Volume Shadow Copy Service, Data Protection Manager

2007 provides ongoing protection of an organization’s core server workload, by

transferring data to a server with Data Protection Manager and performing

snapshots as often as every 15 minutes. The server then provides disk-based

recovery and tape-based, long-term archival storage for a complete data

protection and recovery solution.

Step 2: Build

After IT departments have created an accurate picture of server

assets, the department must design the datacenter and determine

which changes should be made to ensure the most optimized,

cost-efficient infrastructure. Then the department can define a

series of steps that will lead to this goal. These steps will

enable the department to successfully deploy the Windows

Server® 2008 operating system, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and

Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and transform the datacenter into a

strategic asset.

During the build phase, IT departments must create server images, convert

physical servers to virtual servers, create a disaster recovery plan, and

monitor the testing process. During the build phase, IT departments need to

remain on the most efficient and cost-effective course for the business—a task

that is made easier with System Center.

Maximize Efficiency with Consistent Server Configurations

The build phase offers an opportunity for IT departments to identify areas for

reducing costs, improving efficiency, and supporting compliance efforts. One

way to accomplish this is by creating standardized server images for all server

components—both for physical and virtual machines. System Center Operations

Manager 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 facilitate this

process, as shown in Figure 4.



Figure 4 Converting physical servers to virtual servers

The Task Sequencer, driver packages, and dynamic driver catalog included with

Configuration Manager 2007 significantly reduce the number of server images

that IT organizations must create—images that can be deployed to either

physical or virtual machines. IT administrators can create a simple generic

image and dynamically add the necessary drivers during the build. In addition,

by integrating vendor provided tools, Configuration Manager 2007 can automate

the setup of RAID, SAN, and iSCSI hard drive configurations as part of the task

sequence. This can have a significant impact on the amount of manual work

required later as upgrades are rolled out.

Upon creation of the server images for physical machines, Virtual Machine

Manager 2007 converts the appropriate images for virtual machines.

Traditionally, this task can be slow and disrupt business operations, but

Virtual Machine Manager 2007 uses the Volume Shadow Copy Service, which helps

administrators create virtual machines without interrupting the source physical

server. Virtual Machine Manager 2007 also simplifies this whole process by

providing a task-based wizard that helps guide administrators. Once images are

created, Virtual Machine Manager 2007 supports a complete library that

organizes and manages all the “building blocks” of the virtual datacenter

within a single interface.

Mitigate Risk with Continuous Data Protection

Protecting data continues to be a primary concern during the build phase. But

Administrators can lean on Microsoft’s experience in Windows Server® technology

to create a technically advanced and comprehensive data protection solution.

Data Protection Manager 2007 helps prevent IT departments from losing critical

business data when upgrading server infrastructure, as shown in Figure 5. By

integrating a point-in-time database restore with existing application logs,

Data Protection Manager can deliver “near zero data loss” recovery of Microsoft

Exchange Server, SQL Server, and SharePoint Server, eliminating the need to



constantly replicate or synchronize data. Data Protection Manager also uses

both disk and tape mediums to enable fast restores from disk (at multiple

points in the day) and supports long-term data retention and off-site

portability with disks.

Figure 5 Data Protection Manager provides backup and recovery for key

datacenter servers.

Data Protection Manager also offers the following features:

Integrated support for E12 CCR and LCR clusters

Shorter backup windows for SQL Server, without requiring compression

Integrated server farm, database, and site-level restores for SharePoint

Server

One-touch application restores

Meet Service Level Commitments

Before deploying upgrades to the server environment, IT departments perform

extensive tests to ensure there are no disruptions to the business when the new

server products “go live.” System Center Operations Manager 2007 makes it easy

to access the results of these tests, much in the same way that it monitors the

overall health of the server infrastructure. IT departments can also create

scenarios that act like an end user of a specific service to monitor success

and failure rates and performance statistics—results that can help identify

potential deployment issues.



In addition, administrator-designated end users can access Virtual Machine

Manager by way of a Web portal that is designed for user self-service. This

portal enables test users and development users to quickly provision new

virtual machines for themselves, according to the controls set by the

administrator. Not only can IT personnel quickly test new configurations, but

they can also uncover problems before deployment.

Step 3: Deploy During deployment, IT departments must quickly roll out new

products while remaining agile so they can respond to changes.

Costs must also be kept to a minimum and business operations

must not be disrupted.

In the past, deploying new server software required someone to

sit down at each server and complete the upgrade. This manual

process took significant resources and did not guarantee that

servers were deployed with consistent configurations.

Determining which virtual and physical machines to link together was also

difficult because companies didn’t have the data, such as workloads,

performance metrics, and network capacity, to create optimal arrangements.

Companies often risked losing vital company data during the migration process.

System Center helps alleviate these challenges.

Drive Agility with Automated Deployment and System Monitoring

With Configuration Manager 2007, IT administrators can roll out new servers

rapidly and consistently by automating operating system deployments and task

sequences. IT administrators can fully deploy and configure servers from

previous states, either by updating or replacing OEM builds, or by installing

the operating system and applications on new computers. Preboot Execution

Environment protocol and Windows Deployment Services also make it easier to

deploy servers that have no operating system installed—just plug in the server

and turn it on.

The Task Sequencer in Configuration Manager 2007 fully automates the end-to-end

deployment process, enabling zero-touch to near zero-touch deployments. This

means that the process of building servers—which can include more than 80

steps, including image loads, driver loads, update loads, and multiple reboots—

can be handled by Configuration Manager automatically as shown in Figure 6.



Figure 6 Configuration Manager automates the process of deploying server

images.

IT departments can also maintain visibility of the state of the infrastructure

throughout the entire datacenter deployment and management process.

Configuration Manager 2007 generates detailed reports about the deployments and

provides information about those that have failed. This information helps IT

departments resolve problems quickly, easily, and proactively.

Simplify Server Virtualization

To maximize server utilization, it is critical that IT administrators select

the appropriate virtual machine host for a given workload. Virtual Machine

Manager 2007 helps IT departments with this complex task of “Intelligent

Placement”. Virtual Machine Manager 2007 uses a holistic approach to selecting

the appropriate hosts based on four factors:

The resource consumption characteristics of the workload

Minimum CPU, disk, RAM, and network capacity requirements

Performance data from virtual machine hosts

Preselected business rules and models associated with each workflow that

contain knowledge from the entire life cycle of the workload.

After the analysis, Virtual Machine Manager 2007 produces an Intelligent

Placement report that helps the IT department select the appropriate host for a

given workload.



Migrate Data Securely

As administrators migrate information to an updated server platform, it is

crucial that data is not lost or corrupted. Once the new platform is in place,

Data Protection Manager 2007 will identify the new server environment and

enable customers to quickly and easily restore the data where it needs to go.

Administrative delays associated with restores are also reduced by using a

restore user interface that is based on the calendar, robust media management

functionality, and disk-based end-user recovery.

With Data Protection Manager 2007, restoring information takes seconds and

involves simply browsing a share and copying directly from Data Protection

Manager to the production server. By enabling customers to restore data from

disk, Data Protection Manager significantly shortens the amount of time it

takes to recover data, allowing customers to recover data in minutes versus the

hours it takes to recover from tape. Data Protection Manager also minimizes the

risk of failure that is associated with recovering data from tape.

Step 4: Manage

After successfully upgrading the server infrastructure with

next-generation server technology from Microsoft, IT

departments must continue to monitor the infrastructure to

ensure technology and licenses are up-to-date, the network is

secure, and commitments to meet service level agreements for

performance and availability are met. In addition, IT

departments must ensure consistency within server

configurations—for example, guaranteeing that every Exchange

Server has the same configuration—and that server resources are

being used with maximum efficiency to drive the most value from

existing resources.

Meeting these goals was once a challenge because IT departments did not have a

solution that enabled the management of the entire server infrastructure from a

central location. System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise. System

Center Server Management Suite Enterprise not only simplifies and speeds the

deployment of new server products, it also eases the ongoing task of managing

the entire server infrastructure on a day-to-day basis.

Centralize Management of Server Networks

System Center offers many ways for IT departments to proactively manage the

state of IT infrastructure—regardless of its complexity. For example, System

Center Operations Manager 2007 provides an easy-to-use management environment

that can oversee thousands of servers and applications, delivering a

comprehensive view of the health of the datacenter, shown in Figure 7. System

Center Operations Manger 2007 also comes with over 60 management packs, which

extend management capabilities to the operating systems, applications, and

other technology components that make up the datacenter. With these management

packs, IT departments have access to best-practice knowledge about specific

Microsoft products and can more easily discover, monitor, troubleshoot, report

on, and resolve problems for a specific technology component. Consequently,

they can keep their datacenter running smoothly and efficiently. System Center

Operation Manager also has a high availability architecture that can leverage

the latest network load balancing and clustering capabilities to help ensure

the datacenter is managed day and night.



Figure 7 Operations Manager delivers end-to-end monitoring of both physical and

virtual servers.

To help guarantee that the infrastructure has the right configurations across

all required server components, IT administrators can use System Center

Configuration Manager 2007. The Desired Configuration Management feature in

Configuration Manager 2007 allows IT administrators to automatically assess how

computers comply with predefined configurations. For example, IT departments

can monitor the health of a configuration implemented for Microsoft Exchange

Server or Windows Server and are alerted when a server’s configuration drifts

from the standard configuration. Configuration Manager also ships with

Configuration Packs, which provide predefined, optimized configurations for a

range of servers.

In addition, one of the most time-consuming aspects of ongoing management of

the datacenter can be automated and managed by using Configuration Manager.

Updating servers with patches, drivers, etc. within enforced maintenance

windows remains a key challenge for IT departments. The Desired Configuration

Management feature can automate this process, ensuring that servers are

maintained, available, and compliant with organizational standards.

Improve Disaster Recovery Capabilities

IT departments can’t stop natural or organizational disasters from happening.

But such departments can take the appropriate steps to ensure that data is



protected by developing and implementing a well-planned backup and recovery

strategy for network outages and disasters that can be problematic to the

datacenter. Data Protection Manager 2007 delivers the best possible recovery

experience because it features continuous data protection with traditional

backup, disk-based recovery, tape-based storage, database synchronizations, and

log shipping. Consequently, with just a few mouse clicks IT administrators can

restore a SQL Server database directly back to the original server, restore

data to a “recovery database” on the original server, or copy database files to

an alternate server or tape.

Completing the IT Management Life Cycle As IT departments update and maintain datacenter server infrastructure and

transition to a dynamic IT infrastructure, Microsoft® System Center plays a

pivotal role at each step. Because System Center is an integrated solution for

the datacenter, IT departments can derive the most value in the fastest amount

of time. Every capability is built on a common framework and design, so IT

departments can smoothly transition from one phase of the life cycle to the

next. Some examples of these transitions include:

The ability to configure, deploy, and monitor server images, automatically,

and then patch or update these images as required.

The ability to monitor datacenter applications and servers (such as

Microsoft SQL Server™ 2008), be alerted to failures, and then recover from

backup data.

The ability to report server performance, identify problem servers, backup

servers, and convert to a virtual form to allow uninterrupted service while

switching to new hardware.

System Center delivers the capabilities IT department need for the complete IT

management life cycle, and even offers specific licensing to support the

evolution of the datacenter with the Server Management Suite Enterprise.

The System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise

System Center is a family of leading IT management solutions that helps IT

departments proactively plan, deploy, manage, and optimize an IT environment.

Microsoft has now made available the Server Management Suite Enterprise—a

license that brings together the capabilities needed for the complete life

cycle management of IT infrastructure, including:

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 offers integrated

deployment tools that provide a centralized, scalable, and customizable way

for IT departments to deploy servers and clients across the entire

organization, quickly and cost-effectively.

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 provides a sophisticated

solution for unified management of physical servers, virtual machines, and

other devices.

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 delivers simple and

complete support for consolidating multiple physical servers within a

virtual infrastructure, helping to increase overall utilization of physical

servers. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 also enables

administrators and authorized users to rapidly provision and easily manage

virtual machines.

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 provides continuous

data protection and fast, easy data recovery for Windows®-based application



and file servers. All available for physical and virtual machines,

delivering vital data backup and business continuity.

This license not only delivers everything IT departments need to proactively

manage a physical or virtualized Windows-based server and the applications

running on it, but it also provides the rights to manage an unlimited number of

operating system environments on a physical host server. This provides

significant benefits to organizations that are—or will be—deploying virtual

environments in datacenters and beyond.

More information on how to license System Center can be found at

www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/svrmgmtsuites/howtobuy

Conclusion The server infrastructure of datacenters is becoming an increasingly strategic

asset within organizations. While organizations want to reduce the costs

associated with maintaining this asset, they also want to improve security and

compliance to deliver improved business continuity and provide a more

responsive environment that supports business agility. At the same time, IT

departments are challenged to find the fastest, most strategic way to roll out

enhanced server products from Microsoft, such as the Windows Server® 2008

operating system, Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008, and Microsoft Exchange Server

2007 SP1, without disrupting datacenter operations.

In summation, most IT departments are searching for a way to optimize server

infrastructure by transitioning to a dynamic IT infrastructure. With a

comprehensive set of capabilities for managing the server environment, the

Microsoft System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise license provides the

ideal solution for IT departments that want to conquer the challenges

associated with upgrading and optimizing the datacenter.

System Center supports IT departments through every stage of the process of

optimizing the datacenter, by providing a complete solution for life cycle

management. The integrated capabilities of System Center ensure that servers

are deployed faster, issues are identified and resourced in less time, and

datacenter resources are used to the fullest potential.

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/svrmgmtsuites/howtobuy



To learn more about Microsoft System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise,

please talk to your Microsoft representative or visit

www.microsoft.com/systemcenter.

You can also find out more information about specific components of System

Center by visiting the following Web sites:

For more information about System Center Operations Manager, visit

www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/opsmgr/default.mspx

For more information about System Center Configuration Manager, visit

www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configmgr/default.mspx

For more information about System Center Virtual Machine Manager, visit

www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/default.mspx

For more information about System Center Data Protection Manager, visit

www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dpm/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/opsmgr/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configmgr/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dpm/default.mspx

Documents

Controlling Costs and Driving Agility in the Datacenteri.dell.com/sites/content/business/solutions/whitepapers/... · 2012-05-22 · CONTROLLING COSTS AND DRIVING AGILITY IN THE DATACENTER