Solutions for Dynamic Data Centers

Automated provisioning and updating. This solution allows IT pros to quickly provision new virtual and physical computers by performing rapid deployment of Windows operating systems, applications, hotfixes, and updates using software-distribution templates and task sequencing. Then, IT pros can manage those computers using highly prescriptive guidance and tools. Prior to deployment, they can perform capacity planning and resource optimization in the data center for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 deployments. After deployment, IT pros can maintain an up-to-date inventory of the servers and applications that reside in the data center.

Server consolidation through virtualization management. This solution helps IT pros consolidate multiple servers onto fewer computers by converting physical computers to virtual machines (VMs). The prescriptive guidance and best practices help IT pros determine which computers are good candidates for virtualization, and then quickly perform physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual conversions for server consolidation. After deployment, IT can manage the servers to align with application needs by adjusting utilization of physical computers and optimizing the placement of VMs.

Configuration controls and reporting. This solution creates, maintains, and reports configuration controls for data centers to help enforce server compliance. IT pros can use configuration management to discover unintended configuration changes and to ensure a desired configuration state for all components of the physical and virtual server computers. Included in this solution are dashboards and reports that provide visibility into the status of compliance with configuration controls to support compliance efforts, such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), or Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) compliance.

Centralized audit of system security. This solution gathers and reports security-related events to help secure Windows-based computers in data centers. Auditors and security offices can use the reports to assess compliance, including user access audit, account lockouts, privilege changes, asset inventory, and other regulatory compliance. This helps protect the data center IT infrastructure through strong authentication and protection from malware and viruses on Windows-based computers.

Continuous configuration compliance auditing. This solution continuously evaluates the desired computer configuration by defining a baseline that contains the configuration items IT wants to monitor and rules that define the compliance required. Multiple baselines can be assigned to any collection of computers, which provides a high level of configuration control. Up to four levels of severity can be used to prioritize non-compliance. If a computer is non-compliant, IT can automatically bring the computer back into compliance by deploying software to or running scripts on the computer.

Application and service level monitoring. This solution provides proactive operational management in data centers by monitoring service levels across line-of-business (LOB) applications and IT processes through operational IT service views. This end-to-end monitoring is accomplished by performing a user-monitoring perspective of application services to help identify potential problems and performance issues. IT pros can also create diagrams of the data center operations that help them visualize status based on real-time data and information. IT pros can monitor and manage applications and services running in virtualized environments in the same manner as physical environments.

Proactive operating system platform monitoring. This solution provides availability, performance, and configuration monitoring of systems to proactively address IT issues before problems occur. IT pros can monitor servers running multiple operating system platforms from a single management console, including Windows-based, Linux-based, and UNIX-based computers. This solution helps IT pros analyze operating system platforms so that they can detect configuration changes and other issues. They can also generate reports that provide current and historical information about issues that might affect the availability, performance, and reliability of data center environments.