Microsoft Touts Dynamic IT Initiative at Tech·Ed

By Michelle Savage

June 10, 2008 —  ORLANDO — The IT world is changing faster than ever before, and companies are under enormous pressure to keep up with evolving business needs, globalization, faster processing speeds and more. Microsoft's view, according to senior VP Bob Muglia, is that companies need to “boost the agility and speed of their IT systems, ultimately making these systems more dynamic.”

“We call this Dynamic IT," he added, saying that this is Microsoft’s broad idea to “transform business into a technology” by changing the way organizations approach the IT life cycle.

Muglia, who heads Microsoft's Server and Tools business, credited the success of the company's Dynamic IT initiative to products like Windows Server 2008; Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5; the next version of Identity Lifecycle Manager, code-named “ILM 2;” Microsoft Visual Studio 2008; and Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

He used virtualization as one of the best examples of a transformational technology for IT, saying that virtualization creates IT systems that are efficient, cost-effective and able to keep up with constantly changing business needs. As virtualization becomes more prominent in the IT world, he stressed the need to manage and secure Microsoft-based IT infrastructures across both physical and virtualized clients, servers and networks.

Muglia announced a number of updates designed to help customers virtualize and manage their infrastructures, including Microsoft's Server Virtualization Validation Program, which allows vendors to test and validate their virtualization software to run Windows Server 2008 and previous versions of Windows Server. There were also four new virtualization certifications designed to help for IT technicians and developers work with virtualization technologies, as well as Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 release candidate 1, which will be available this month.

He also described Microsoft’s support strategy for its Forefront line of security products, which includes Forefront Client Security support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V (which is expected to be released to the public within 180 days of the release to manufacturing of the new server operating system), and support within the new Forefront security solution, code-named "Stirling" (scheduled to launch in the first half of 2009). The public beta of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 for managing Hyper-V environments is also available now, he added.

In addition to virtualization tools, Microsoft rolled out a public beta of ILM 2, which is its platform for identity synchronization, certificate and password management, and user provisioning. According to Muglia, ILM delivers comprehensive identity and access management while reducing the costs of identity management.

Muglia also touched on Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate news, which he said has gone through “the RC process” and is well on its way to release. “It’s in great shape,” he said, calling it the “third of the trifecta,” which also includes the recently shipped Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.



Related Search Term(s): Security, server management, virtualization, Windows Sever, Microsoft

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