Microsoft will soon begin delivering software components
for an initiative aimed at reducing datacentre complexity, with the
goal of making it easier for companies to deploy and manage
applications across large groups of servers.
The Dynamic Systems Initiative aims to alleviate what Microsoft
viewed as a "crisis in the datacentre", said Bob O'Brien, group
product manager of Microsoft's Windows Server division. IT managers
face a profusion of data, devices, applications and personnel, and
need technology that will help them integrate and run their
intricate environments, he added.
Microsoft's project centres on a software architecture
specification for developers that aims to make applications more
flexible and self-descriptive. The first deliverable based on the
initiative, according to O'Brien, will be Microsoft's Windows
Server 2003 software, due out on 24 April. Other components will
roll out over the next several years, with at least one more piece
scheduled to arrive before the end of 2003.
Microsoft spoke about the program briefly last month during a
presentation at its Silicon Valley campus. Further details of the
initiative are scheduled be discussed next week at the company's
annual Microsoft Management Summit, in Las Vegas.
Microsoft has developed a specification it calls the System
Definition Model, which is an XML-based blueprint for building
functionality into applications that will allow them to describe
their own operational requirements. If an application can describe
its own deployment, resource and security requirements, it can be
more easily and flexibly managed, O'Brien said.
Microsoft has been working closely with a number of hardware,
software and services partners on its Dynamic Systems Initiative,
including Computer Associates International, Electronic Data
Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.
Sun Microsystems and IBM are each working on their own heavily
hyped initiatives for addressing computing complexity.
But Microsoft's approach to the problem is unique, and likely to
pay off for customers more quickly than projects from other
suppliers, said Tom Bittman, an analyst with Gartner.
"[Microsoft is] a little late, but they're also coming at it
from a different way. They're approaching this from an inside-out
perspective, focusing on the applications first," he said.
Windows Server 2003 will include several features developed as
part of the Dynamic Systems Initiative, O'Brien said. Most of those
features will be found in the Enterprise and Datacenter editions of
the software, though some will appear in the Standard version.
Later this year, Microsoft will deliver the second technology
created under the initiative: Automated Deployment Services, an
addition to Windows Server 2003, that will aim to drastically
reduce the time needed for imaging and deployment of server
systems.
The software, which Bittman described as "very simply, an image
sprayer", will be particularly effective in blade-server
environments, he said.