REDMOND, Wash., March 18, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. today announced growing industry partner support for the Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI). This initiative unifies hardware, software and service vendors around a software architecture, which enables customers to harness the power of industry-standard hardware and brings simplicity, automation and flexibility to IT operations. The software architecture and set of products delivered with Microsoft’s initiative will open doors to new innovation and business opportunities for industry partners. Vendors of industry-standard hardware will be able to offer powerful new designs and solutions that support DSI technology and deliver new levels of integration, automation and flexibility at a lower cost of ownership. Industry-leading and newly formed datacenter management and automation independent software vendors (ISVs) will be able to leverage this intelligent new infrastructure to create powerful new software solutions. Service vendors will be able to run more-efficient datacenters and bring to market more-flexible, competitive service offerings.
“The Dynamic Systems Initiative presents an opportunity for us and industry partners to deliver real breakthroughs in simplicity, flexibility and automation for customers,” said Bill Veghte, corporate vice president of the Windows®
Server Group at Microsoft.
“The architectural innovations at the core of the Dynamic Systems Initiative will create many opportunities for partners to build new solutions, grow their business and diversify their offerings.”
Backed by Growing Industry Support and Adoption
Hardware vendors are already working to design hardware and complete solutions that will serve as the foundation for dynamic systems. Software products from Microsoft will augment their powerful hardware offerings to deliver a more efficient, manageable solution for customers. Industry leaders such as Dell Computer Corp. and HP recognize the opportunity associated with DSI and are investing accordingly.
“Dell and Microsoft are strategically aligned and committed to delivering DSI-compliant solutions. Automated Deployment Services and Dell’s IntelligentIT management tools will provide our joint customers with a powerful way to reduce the costs associated with deploying and administering large numbers of Windows-based servers and applications running on Dell PowerEdge servers,”
said Pete Morowski, vice president of software, Dell Product Group.
“The combination of Microsoft software architecture leadership and Dell’s ability to deliver the Virtual Data Center based on high-powered, low-cost hardware will result in a very cost-effective, easy-to-manage environment for pay-as-you-grow computing.”
As a result of close collaboration over the past year between Microsoft and HP, customers will quickly realize the benefits of an integrated hardware and software solution and experience the benefits of dynamic systems across heterogeneous datacenter environments.
“HP is committed to providing customers with solutions that enable a more agile infrastructure. Our close relationship with Microsoft uniquely positions us to leverage the System Definition Model across the board management software, solutions, services, storage and servers to deliver integrated DSI-compatible solutions to our customers,”
said Peter Blackmore, executive vice president for the Enterprise Systems Group at HP.
“HP’s management approach, based on Adaptive Infrastructure, provides a great foundation for integration with Microsoft’s SDM. For example, we will ensure best-in-class integration of the ProLiant Essentials Smart Start Scripting Kit with ADS.”
Initial opportunities for management and automation ISVs exist to take advantage of new platform enhancements such as Automated Deployment Services (ADS) to expand the capabilities of their existing offerings. As Microsoft continues to deliver new products with deeper support for the System Definition Model (SDM), ISVs will be able to provide groundbreaking new solutions to address the challenges associated with managing loosely coupled applications in a highly distributed environment.
“As a leading provider of solutions for the management of infrastructure, information and processes, CA is supporting Microsoft’s Dynamic Systems Initiative as an architecture for helping our customers become more efficient in provisioning and maintaining critical IT services,”
said Wai Wong, senior vice president and general manager of Unicenter solutions at Computer Associates International Inc.
”
Through integration with Automated Deployment Services, we will extend the capabilities of our industry-leading Unicenter solutions to better automate the provisioning of Microsoft® Windows-based servers across the enterprise. Moving forward, we also see the System Definition Model as an innovation that complements our management solutions and empowers our customers with greater control, quality and efficiency in their increasingly complex enterprise environments.”
Innovative solutions from emerging ISVs such as Centrata Inc., Consera Software Corp., Opsware Inc. and Think Dynamics Inc. can easily benefit from designs supporting Microsoft’s SDM-enabled products. Moving up the value chain, ISVs will be able to deliver enhanced value to their customers in a more standardized operations environment.
“Creating a solid software architecture that spans the life cycle of an application is the right strategy to enable development and deployment of truly dynamic systems,”
said Frank Artale, CEO and president of Consera Software.
“We recognize the industry leadership position Microsoft is taking with its Dynamic Systems Initiative and are excited about the opportunity to create products that support the architecture. Beginning with Automated Deployment Services, Consera products will leverage this infrastructure to help customers better manage these sophisticated and complex environments.”
“Opsware strongly supports Microsoft’s strategy to address operations and administration challenges in the datacenter,”
said Marc Andreessen, chairman of Opsware.
“To reduce the cost and complexity of datacenter operations and better utilize servers, networks and storage, IT clearly needs a new software architecture that drives operations intelligence into applications. By embracing Microsoft’s Dynamic Systems Initiative and integrating with Automated Deployment Services, Opsware is not only extending its support for Windows environments, but taking datacenter automation to the next level.”
By use of dynamic systems in their datacenters, service vendors that deliver hosted or outsourcing services will significantly increase their overall efficiency and service delivery to customers. In addition, they will see new higher-level consulting service opportunities to assist customers in mapping dynamic systems to business processes.
“EDS believes that the Dynamic Systems Initiative has tremendous potential to add value to our clients, and we look forward to exploring these possibilities with Microsoft,”
said Larry Lozon, global service line executive for Web and Application Hosting at EDS.
“EDS has been integrating disparate systems and managing data centers for enterprise clients for over 40 years. Our experience with automated data center operations has grown exponentially over the past year due to our relationships with leading-edge innovators in this space. Microsoft and EDS will capitalize on this experience to further develop capabilities — starting with Windows Server 2003 and Automated Deployment Services — to meet the needs of our diverse and global client base.”
On the Horizon
Microsoft will more fully describe the architectural requirements for hardware that supports the Dynamic Systems Initiative at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2003 to be held in New Orleans May 6–8. More information on WinHEC 2003 is available at http://www.microsoft.com/winhec/. For the developer community, Microsoft will deliver additional information about the System Definition Model and other software innovations related to DSI at the Professional Developer Conference 2003 this fall.
About Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is a comprehensive, integrated and secure infrastructure designed to help customers reduce costs and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations. Building on Windows 2000 family strengths, the new server platform helps customers extend existing resources while laying the foundation for building a new generation of connected applications that improve business productivity. More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
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