IT Management - Microsoft

ProStrategy delivers IT efficiency and reduces IT risk through automation and effective management of the entire IT process. To automate IT Service Management, one must manage the people, processes, and technologies that make up the IT Service Management discipline. 

Microsoft System Center management products enable best practice support to manage the various IT Service Management functions defined by the Microsoft Operating Framework (MOF) and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). A key function of IT Service Management is the service desk. The service desk provides a contact point where people interact with IT services on issues such as problem or change Management. The service desk also provides an organization’s management visibility into the overall performance of the IT environment through reports and dashboards. 
   

SCVMM provides centralized administration of Virtual Server, enables increased physical server utilization and rapid provisioning of new virtual machines

• Centralized deployment and management of virtual machines
• Intelligent Placement analysis to determine the best servers for virtualization
• Quick physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual conversion
• Ease of use with a familiar interface and seamless integration with other Microsoft products
• Faster deployments with administrator-managed self-service provisioning
• Resource efficiency with server consolidation and increased processor utilization
• Quick automation via PowerShell scripting integration

For Samll & Mediom sized Business

Microsoft offers a "right sized" version of its comprehensive management solution for the virtualized data centerSystem Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 Workgroup Edition. A crucial component in managing both physical and virtual infrastructure, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) enables increased physical server utilization and rapid provisioning of new virtual machines. While the Workgroup Edition of VMM is optimized for smaller organizations, it loses none of the enterprise-class features and functionality of the version found in System Center’s Server Management Suite Enterprise. In fact, the only technical difference between the two versions is that the Workgroup Edition is limited to managing a maximum of five virtual machine hosts. And, there is no limit to the number of virtual machines that can be run on those five hosts. VMM Workgroup Edition enables an IT department to get control of its data center infrastructure and helps it become more flexible and agile in meeting the needs of a swiftly evolving organization. 

Security & Inventoy

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool provides secure, agent-less and network-wide inventory that scales from small business to large enterprises. It collects and organizes system resources and device information from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried, but this tool does not. MAP uses technologies already available in your IT environment to perform inventory and assessments. These technologies include Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, SNMP, Active Directory Domain Services, and the Computer Browser service. Assessments can be completed on the following Windows platforms:

• Windows Vista
• Windows XP® Professional
• Windows Server 2003™ or Windows Server 2003 R2
• Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 2000 Server
• Windows Server 2008 

comprehensive Data analysis 

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs a detailed analysis of hardware and device compatibility for migration to Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization, and Windows Vista. The hardware assessment looks at the installed hardware and determines if migration is recommended. If it is not recommended then the reports tell you why it is not.

Device assessment looks at the devices installed on a computer and reports availability of drivers for those devices. Device assessment is provided for both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista migration scenarios.

For customers interested in server consolidation and virtualization through technologies such as Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2, this tool helps to gather performance metrics and generate server consolidation recommendations that identify the candidates for server virtualization and how the physical servers might be placed in a virtualized environment. 

Readiness Reporting

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator generates reports containing both summary and detailed assessment results for each migration scenario. The results are provided in both Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word documents. Reports are generated for the following scenarios:

Identification of currently installed Windows Client operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Vista.
Identification of currently installed Windows Server operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Server 2008 (including a report detailing currently installed server roles).
Identification of currently installed Microsoft Office software and recommendations for migration to Microsoft Office 2007.
Detailed assessment and reporting of server utilization gathered using the Performance Metrics Wizard.
Recommendations for server consolidation and virtual machine placement using Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2.
Assessment of client machines, servers, and the technology environment for the implementation of Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid).
Reporting of SNMP-enabled devices found in the environment during inventory.