Dec 21

Cross-Platform Support in Microsoft System Center Products

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Executive Summary:

Achieving a unified systems management solution in today’s cross-platform environments isn’t necessarily a difficult challenge, but finding one that has depth, multi-vendor support and a strong-standing community support it may be. This is an introduction to how Microsoft System Center technologies can provide a “single pane of glass” to manage both your Microsoft and non-Microsoft platforms.

Enter Sir Mix A LOT!

The field of the battle among the enterprise capable server and desktop management solutions is abundant. Each wants to defend their honour and the battle is relentless. The known heirs to the thrown are (arguably) Tivoli, HP, CA, Altiris and, most recently, Microsoft.

However, for those that have no loyalty to one platform over the other (i.e. Windows, UNIX, Linux, Apple, etc.) finding a single management solution for the various platforms and applications running atop them can be a very daunting task. Yet, the most unlikely of the bunch – perhaps even the most ruthless in years past – has more recently made significant investments to level the playing field and reduce the urge for battle amongst the feuding families of thought.

Who is this valiant defender of the poor, spreading the riches? Believe it or not, it would be the blokes from Redmond, Washington. Yes… Microsoft!

The software giant is making significant inroads towards furthering the reach of the company’s System Center-based solutions to extend beyond Microsoft-centric platforms and applications. In this article, we’ll examine how these investments in non-Windows based systems has lead to more heterogeneous support in the quest for the holy grail: a single pane of glass to manage all over our IT investments.

The Holy Grail? Really?

Most organisations are of one of two thoughts: either there is only one management platform and it exist solely to manage the most mission critical non-Windows platforms or there is little to no management of any platforms – Microsoft or otherwise.

Most companies today have made investments – in one way or another – in various forms of Microsoft technologies. These investments could include just the core basics of Active Directory and Exchange or they may extend themselves as far as Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint Services, BizTalk, ISA, IIS and many more.

For those organizations, who better to tell them how to actively manage these Microsoft products then the Microsoft product groups that wrote those products to begin with?

Imagine for a moment the same person, who during development cycle, decided that Microsoft Exchange Server error code 0x8004010f means “x”, but more importantly, the fact that that is has indeed occurred on “y” server, the primary causes of the alert are “a, b and/or c”, and most importantly how to resolve it. All this root-cause analysis is coming from the product group that wrote the server-based solution to begin with.

This is precisely what System Center Operations Manager 2007 (OpsMgr) provides its user.

Now, this is just the Microsoft product stack. Imagine for a moment what happens when the company solicits and actively engages the 3rd party ISV community to extent System Center solutions like Operations Manger to also include the layer-2 & layer-3 devices as well as non-Microsoft operating systems like HP-AIX, UNIX, Linux and Apple. And don’t forget about the vast amounts of applications that don’t originate from Redmond’s campuses. The result is actually quite impressive!

Management packs created by the 3rd party ISV community extend Operations Manager’s capabilities to monitor these platforms with discovery rules, monitors, reports and the product-specific knowledge bases to assist with root cause analysis. Such management packs are currently available from vendors like AVIcode, Citrix, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, Quest Software, Secure Vantage, SolarWinds and many more.

Today’s IT managers can now easily allow Microsoft System Center solutions to manage the ever-challenging cross-platform environments – or even allow bilateral or unilateral communication with some of the other leading monitoring solutions including CA Unicenter, HP OpenView and Dell OpenManage.

What this means to the IT staff is that System Center Operations Manger 2007 could become the “manager of managers” or it could simply pass information to or receive information from other management systems. The choice is yours – and the flexibility abundant. Not something you’d commonly expect from the Microsoft warlord.

To make this an even more compelling fairytale, Microsoft has acquired Engyro Corporation, the maker of system management interoperability solutions for Operations Manager. According to the Engyro website “the Engyro Product Connector supports bi-directional alert/event synchronization from an unlimited number of Operations Manager managed nodes and Operations Manager Management Groups and also provides support for high availability for the integration between Operations Manager and other event management systems”. But, perhaps most importantly, these product connectors are being made available free-of-charge! Solutions currently exist for Tivoli TEC, HP OVO and Remedy ARS.

Likewise, Microsoft currently has beta solutions available for agent management of the following operating systems:

  • HP-UX 11iv3 (PA-RISC and IA64)
  • Sun Solaris 10 (SPARC and x86)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server
  • Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1

To download the beta, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Microsoft Connect, and log in.
  2. Click on Connection Directory at the top menu.
  3. Scroll down the list of categories to System Center TAP/Beta.
  4. Within this category you will see the program, “Operations Manager Public Beta (Cross Platform and Interop)”.  Click Apply Now.
  5. Complete the survey, and then you’re connected and can download the OpsMgr Cross Platform Beta

Figure 1 – Engyro Product Connector Overview for Tivoli Enterprise Console

Managing Beyond the Server Realm

While we’d all like to lay claim that our server-based infrastructure is far more dear than our desktop-based systems, we can surely agree that all the servers in the land would be for not if it weren’t for the peasantry desktop and laptop systems that connect to them for various reasons – many of which are the bread and butter (i.e. revenue generating) functions of the company.

However, with the distributed nature of the desktop platform and mobile systems such as laptops, PDAs and mobile phones, even the most basic management needs of hardware and software inventory can be troublesome. Adding additional management capabilities such as software distribution, patch management, operating system deployment and remote control only further complicates matters. But, the biggest complexity of all seems to be finding a single solution to manage all our platforms while not having to sacrifice features or capabilities in the process.

With this in mind, Microsoft has also made it very easy to adopt System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) as a standard end-point management solution by working with the ISV community to incorporate SCCM solutions for the non-Windows platforms.

Some of these vendor-based solutions include native-like client support for SUSE, RedHat, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and Mac OS X as well as layer-2 and -3 network devices. These solutions just as natively integrate themselves into the product interface as a standard Windows-powered platform.

The premise laid forth here is that you should be able to have a common toolset, and a solution framework with which to manage all your systems. This allows administrators to reduce the number of consoles that they must utilize to manage the environment and thereby reducing the complexities involved. This is especially true when attempting to assess the root cause of system failures. Meanwhile, senior management is able to benefit from the reduced number of solutions that they must purchase as well as the associated maintenance license programs and vendor relationships.

The goal: a single pane of glass from which we can effectively manage the environment – from the data centre to the desktop. Reduce cost and complexity. Improve manageability and agility.

 

Figure 2 – Configuration Manager console with Quest Management Xtensions

Merlin-like Virtualisation Sorcery

Tom Bittman, VP & Analyst for Gartner, has stated that “virtualisation without good management is more dangerous than not using virtualisation in the first place”. And, with the rapid pace of virtualisation sprawl, and the varied virtualisation platforms now available, being able to manage these virtual hosts and guest environments is like trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

However, with the recent release of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM), Microsoft has once again crossed the muddy fields of battle offering a king’s ransom in exchange for a peaceful accord between the top two virtualisation vendors; VMware and Microsoft. So, just what kind of magic did they use to bewitch the VMware zealots? Try a little cross-platform support for Microsoft Virtual Server, Hyper-v and VMware. Again, the recurring theme coming from the Redmond camp is a “single pane of glass”.

With Virtual Machine Manager 2008 you are easily able to add Hyper-v, Virtual Server and Virtual Center instances into the VMM console and manage each virtualisation platform with a common toolset. You can even add multiple VMware Virtual Centers to the console and managing them all from the same connect – something that Virtual Center itself currently does not offer. In addition, all functions within the console are platform aware and know how to translate the function being performed on whichever target platform is being managed by the action.

The console’s underlying engine is based on Windows PowerShell, so whatever actions you perform in the console can be exposed by clicking the “View Script” button at the end of the wizard. The scripts are easily exported and can be customized for the purposes of process automation later.

Figure 3 – Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Console

Summary

Microsoft has long had a reputation of not playing well with others and being a heavy-handed overlord. Yet, today, we see a changing of the guards. A new world ahead of us. Perhaps even a compassionate ruler that has favoured diplomacy in the stead of blood-letting battle. While the subjects of the land may still question the motives of the leader’s new direction, few could question the honourable merit of what is taking place within the System Center product family to make the quest for “a single pane of glass” an easier victory to be found.

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