http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2008/07/09/virtual-machine-manager-2008-and-smse-updates-coming-later-this-year.aspx

You see, I’ve been privileged to work with the product group over the past couple of weeks to get bits and pieces of the forthcoming solution to present during my three sessions on Managing Virtualisation at the Wave Launch. In a nutshell, here’s what you’re look at in the next version of Virtual Machine Manager:

1. Cross-platform support for Virtual Server 2005, Hyper-v and VMWare.
2. A single pane of glass to monitor all your virtual machines
3. Intelligent Placement capabilities across all your VM hosts
4. Automated maintenance and management using PowerShell scripts for all your VM hosts
5. Centralised Library of all your VMs, ISOs, VHDs, Scripts, and Templates.
6. Self-Provisioning of Virtual Machines using Templates and Quotas. 
7. Unified management experience of all your Virtual Center and VMM infrastructures.

Now, that’s only part of the story. When you combine other award-winning System Center technologies like Operations Manager 2007, Configuration Manager 2007 and Data Protection Manager 2007, what you have is a complete suite of life-cycle management solutions that can carry a system from cradle to grave. That, my friends, is something you will not find from any competitive virtualisation solution.

If you want to go the route of virtualising your environment, please give a moment’s pause to consider whether you are buying a "point solution" that does only one thing or whether you want to buy into a full lifecycle management solution for not only the physical host, but also for the virtual machines running on those host and the applications running within those virtualised instances.

As Tom Bittman, VP & Analyst with Gartner, stated:

Virtualisation without good management is more dangerous than not using virtualisation in the first place.

Ask yourself the questions:

Once you’ve deployed a virtual server into production…

• How will you patch the OS?
• How will you update the SQL Server to the latest Service Pack?
• How will you supply updates to custom applications?
• How will you back up that live server with zero data loss?
• How will you monitor the Exchange role that is hosted on that virtual server?
• How will you make sure that not only the IIS instance of that virtual server is running but that end users can actually connect to it properly?
• How are you going to deploy other virtual machines?
• How will you ensure that their desired state will be maintained through the life of the system?

These are just a few of the things that a complete solution like the family of System Center products will offer you.

If you don’t have good answers to those questions, then please don’t buy a point solution just to say you’re virtualising servers. Buy a solution that fits your lifecycle management strategy. And, today… that solution is Microsoft System Center: Your systems {managed}.

Positioned as a heterogeneous virtual machine management solution, v.Next will support Virtual Server 2005, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and VMware ESX servers (with Xen server support in a future release).

Click the image above for a larger view.

Technorati Tags: System Center,Virtual Machine Manager,VMM,SCVMM

I promise you won’t be disappointed.

The event runs from May 9, through May 11. Registration is only €175 and includes an open bar on two of the nights – hence, PUB Forum.

The feedback from this cross-Europe event has been great! Previous cities have included Amsterdam, London, Paris, Munich, Nice, Brussels, and Lisbon. Running twice a year since 2003, this is the 10th such event. About half of the presenters this year are fellow Microsoft MVPs.

Click here for more details or to register.

Topics include:

• Using the VMM Administrator Console
• Using Windows PowerShell – Virtual Machine Manager command shell
• Managing hosts
• Configuring the Virtual Machine Manager library
• Creating virtual machines
• Creating templates, hardware profiles, and guest operating system profiles
• Deploying and migrating virtual machines
• Managing virtual machines
• Setting up virtual machine self-service
• Setting up reporting
• VMM administration
• Community resources

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ie/library/bb963711(en-us).aspx

If you’re not familiar with the VHD programme, it’s Microsoft’s attempt to replicate the success of Linux’s LiveCD distributions that allow you to have immediate access to the platforms/applications. In the case of Microsoft VHDs, these files are used in conjunction with Virtual PC or Virtual Server 2005 to save you the effort of building out the virtual environment for the purposes of evaluating the software. It’s a great first look, but most commonly you’ll still find yourself wanting to build from scratch yourself – that or I’m just a masochists in need of therapy. Anyhow, download to your heart’s content.

Get the VMM VHD

Get other VHDs