Microsoft finally released the second version of its enterprise console for Hyper-V: System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008.
This new version brings a wide range of improvements including a new user interface (both the console and the web self-service portal) but it’s specially interesting for three main new features:
- it’s able to manage VMware ESX hosts through the VirtualCenter APIs (this includes performing even complex tasks like VMotion).
- it includes a new capacity planning engine called Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO), which continuously monitors the virtual infrastructure and suggests how virtual machines should be improved (upgrading the virtual hardware) or moved across the available virtualization host to achieve the best performance.
The PRO engine is influenced by some pre-defined policies and SCVMM administrators can decide to approve/ignore each suggestion or automate the process.
Additionally, PRO is extensible through 3rd party management packs, which can give further indications to SCVMM on how to move workload in the virtual data center. - it’s able to apply most of its features to all supported platforms. This means that the PRO engine and the Powershell scripting work with Hyper-V and ESX at the same time.
SCVMM 2008 is available today as trial. The purchase instead will start Nov. 1.
The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.