Microsoft is developing System Center Operations Manager 2007, the sucessor of MOM 2005.

Important Changes:

Proactively manages business critical IT services including applications, the supporting infrastructure and hardware, and end user clients.
 
Reduce the complexities of managing your IT environment by providing a monitoring solution that is designed with ease of use in mind.
 
Include management packs with prescriptive knowledge developed by the application and OS development teams at Microsoft and verified in production deployments to improve monitoring, troubleshooting, and problem resolution for more than 50 Microsoft applications and Windows server components.
 
If you want to test the System center Operations Manager 2007, register to the Beta Program on :

http://connect.microsoft.com/programdetails.aspx?ProgramDetailsID=500

Microsoft introduces in Microsoft VirtualServer R2, support to some Linux as Guest.

To better the performance in this scenarios, is recommend install Virtual Server Additions on Guest machines.

To get the VirtualServer Additions to Linux, access this url :

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/linuxguestsupport/default.mspx

Important, the following Enterprise/Standart distributions are supported to install additions :

• Enterprise distributions:
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 (update 6)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 (update 6)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0
• SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0
 
 
• Standard distributions:
• Red Hat Linux 7.3
• Red Hat Linux 9.0
• SuSE Linux 9.2
• SuSE Linux 9.3
• SuSE Linux 10.0
 
 

If you want to download the free version, access the following link :

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6DBA2278-B022-4F56-AF96-7B95975DB13B&displaylang=en

Attention to the requerid operational systems and hardwares below.

Requirements for x86 version
Supported Operating Systems
• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
• Windows XP Professional Edition
• Windows XP Service Pack 2
 

Requirements for Use
• Computer with a 550 MHz or faster processor; 1.0 GHz or faster recommended
• Requires an Intel Celeron, Pentium III, Pentium 4, or Xeon processor; or AMD Opteron, Athlon, Athlon 64, Athlon X2, Sempron, or Duron processor
• All physical processors supported by the host operating system
• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, or Datacenter Edition or later
• Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition or Premium Edition
• Windows XP Professional (for non-production use only)
• 256 MB of RAM minimum (additional memory needed for each guest operating system)
• 2 GB of available hard-disk space (additional disk space needed for each guest operating system)
• Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher-resolution monitor recommended
 

   Would like to participate as a beta tester in Office12 ? Exchange 12 ? Windows Vista ?

   Use the following form to subscription :

   http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/beta/preregister.mspx

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Beta Program is avaliable, try this, and lear how you can use this for your organization increase operational efficiency in software test and development, application migration, and server consolidation scenarios. R2 provides support for 64-bit host operating systems including 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP, performance enhancements, built-in support for network installations of guest operating systems, and several other features. We look forward to the participation of a large group of beta testers as we complete the development of this product.

The instructions to join in Beta Program are avaliable in:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/evaluation/sp1beta.mspx

Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner 2006 (Beta) helps size and plan deployments of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 by providing you with the tools and guidance to deploy efficiently while planning for the future.

Try this:

 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B68C06A5-8949-4A3F-9685-21228DBE8A0E&displaylang=en

Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) offers the latest security enhancements and features, including:

• Broader OS and database support, including Windows Server 2003 SP1 and SQL 2000 SP4, which enables you to leverage the latest Windows Server System software.
 
• Support for x64 platforms which allows MOM 2005 to run on and monitor the latest high performance hardware.
 
• License usage alerting which enables you to receive alerts when product usage exceeds the configured threshold of licensed OMLs.
 
• Many customer-requested enhancements to better support enterprise scenarios: • Support for disjoint namespaces with mutual authentication
 
• Support for NETBIOS names containing dot
 
• Improved robustness of heart beating and Microsoft Connector Framework
 

 To download go to :  http://www.microsoft.com/mom/downloads/2005/sp1.mspx

Windows Longhorn Server Beta 1 includes the core foundation and application programming interfaces (APIs) for server components. The goal of the beta 1 release is to gather feedback from original equipment manufacturers, independent hardware manufactures, system builders, independent software vendors, and developers who are participating in a private beta program.

Windows Longhorn Server will provide customers with:

• A rock-solid server foundation that is secure, manageable, responsive, interoperable, and compatible.
 
• A platform that supports rapid development and delivery of smart and connected applications.
 
• Agility, to increase operational efficiency and IT effectiveness.
 
• Policy-based networking, improved branch management and enhanced end user collaboration.

  Microsoft released some documents to help you start using Microsoft Operations Manager 2005.

   All links, including LAB, Evaluation version and others can be accessed on the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/Mom/techinfo/training/getstarted.mspx

  To improve secure in systems with Windows 2000 SP4, and to facilite the patch management, Microsoft released today one security rollup package.

This update contains:

To download:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C0A2CA36-1179-431C-80E6-60A494D3823D&displaylang=en