Standards-Based Systems Management: Managing Mixed-IT Environments

Helping customers manage their mixed-IT environment of both physical and virtual systems with a common set of systems management tools is one of our top priorities. Novell and Microsoft are working together to deploy standards-based technologies across their management tools, in order to improve choice, flexibility and ultimately, efficiency for the data center.

We are developing an open source implementation of the WS-MAN specification for a mixed-IT environment. When our work is complete, you will be able to use Microsoft System Center and Novell ZENworks to manage both Windows and Linux environments.

The foundation of these standards-based system management tools is a universal management protocol that each operating system can use to share information about itself. With it, you can manage your mixed-IT environment from a single console. All you have to do is choose the set of Windows or Linux management tools that work best for you, and know that they'll manage the other operating system confidently. This systems management solution essentially collapses your two data centers into one—which means less busywork for your IT staff, increased productivity and complexity that's cut in half.