14 DAY TRIAL // Formerly code-named "Virtual Machine Manager vNext," System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 went live on the Microsoft Download Center at the end of the past month and is now up for grabs. The solution is designed to offer monitoring capabilities that assess the availability of VMM 2008 components. But at the same time, System Center (VMM) 2008 Management Pack is set up to also evaluate the availability, health, and performance metrics not only for all virtual machines but also for the virtual machine hosts managed by VMM.
“The VMM 2008 Management Pack monitors virtual machines running on Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server, and VMWare ESX Server hosts that VMM is managing, as well as the managed virtual machine hosts, library servers, and other VMM components. This management pack is tightly integrated with VMM 2008 to implement the following features: comprehensive health monitoring of virtual machines Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) in VMM; VMM reports; diagram views available from the VMM Administrator Console,” revealed Keith Combs, Microsoft evangelist.
According to Nick MacKechnie, senior technical account manager at Microsoft New Zealand, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 comes to the table with a range of enhancements, including updated reports from all managed platforms. The solution is now capable to identify and assess physical computers that can easily be converted into virtual machines. In this context, the Virtualization Candidates report will include information designed to deliver a complete perspective over a machine from performance metrics to hardware configuration and resources.
MacKechnie enumerated additional improvements: “VM utilization - provides information about your virtual machines. For the identified time, this report shows average usage and total or maximums for virtual machine processors, memory, and disk space. Host utilization - shows the number of virtual machines running per host. For the identified time and host group, this report shows average usage and total or maximums for host processors, memory, and disk space. Host utilization growth - shows the percentage growth of host resources and number of virtual machines running for the identified time period. VM allocation - provides information you can use to calculate chargeback to cost centers for virtual machines.”
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 is available for download here.