Progress Report from Tech•Ed: Dynamic IT Delivering on Promise of Transforming IT

ORLANDO, Fla. — June 10, 2008 — Speaking to more than 10,000 IT professionals attending the Microsoft Tech•Ed North America 2008 IT Professionals conference, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft Corp., said that the past year has been a pivotal one in the evolution of corporate datacenters, and that Microsoft is delivering on its Dynamic IT initiative thanks to products such as Windows Server 2008; Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5; the next version of Identity Lifecycle Manager, code-named ILM “2”; Microsoft Visual Studio 2008; and Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

Muglia’s remarks built upon his comments at last year’s Tech•Ed event, (http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0705/30242/Bob_Muglia-Dynamic_IT_MBR.asx), where he touted the benefits of Microsoft’s Dynamic IT initiative, and came on the heels of last week’s Microsoft Tech•Ed North America 2008 Developers conference, where Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates spoke to the transformation of application development. Dynamic IT, which converts IT from a business expense to a business asset and shifts the IT focus from activities that just keep datacenters running to those that can result in strategic advantages, continues to be a key theme for the company.

“The IT industry is evolving at a rate like never before — driven by changing user needs, globalization, shifting economic pressures, increasingly faster processing speeds and more,” Muglia said. “We truly believe this change represents an opportunity for IT professionals to move the needle at their companies by employing new solutions and technologies to boost the agility and speed of their IT systems, ultimately making these systems more dynamic. We call this Dynamic IT.”

Building on these discussions, Muglia pointed to virtualization as an example of a transformational technology for IT. When effectively deployed and managed, virtualization creates IT systems that are highly efficient and cost-effective, with the self-awareness to adapt automatically as business conditions change. Muglia also discussed ways customers can manage and help secure their Microsoft-based IT infrastructures across physical and virtualized clients, servers and networks. Microsoft disclosed several updates to help ready customers and partners to use virtualization in their infrastructure.

  • Server Virtualization Validation Program. The Server Virtualization Validation Program is now operational and open to any software vendor to test and validate its virtualization software to run Windows Server 2008 and previous versions of Windows Server. The program enables Microsoft to offer cooperative technical support to customers running Windows Server on validated, non-Microsoft server virtualization software.

  • Certifications. Four new virtualization certifications are being introduced for desktop support technicians, database administrators and Web developers who will work with virtualization technologies. Training resources also include eight instructor-led courses, five Microsoft E-Learning courses, traditional academic learning courseware and Microsoft Press training kits.

  • Microsoft Application Virtualization. Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 release candidate one (RC1) will be available within the month for customers.

  • Forefront security. Microsoft today outlined support for virtualization with the Microsoft Forefront line of security products, which includes Forefront Client Security support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V upon its release, and support within the next-generation Forefront security solution, code-named “Stirling,” with its release scheduled in the first half of 2009.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V remains on schedule to release within 180 days of the release to manufacturing of the new server operating system. To advance its comprehensive virtualization approach, Microsoft also recently announced the public beta availability of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 for managing Hyper-V environments.

“We view technology as a strategic asset, and our goal is to build a more dynamic datacenter that enables The SCOOTER Store to provide freedom and independence to people with limited mobility,” said Richard Webster, manager of systems and storage at The SCOOTER Store. “As business demands rapidly change, so do the demands on our infrastructure. Microsoft’s virtualization strategy and products allow us to move one step closer to fully leveraging our IT investments and realizing a more dynamic IT infrastructure. We expect to increase our overall number of applications by 25 percent while reducing our total number of physical servers required to host those applications by 40 percent.”

Muglia today also outlined other news showcasing Microsoft’s progress across Dynamic IT:

  • Identity Lifecycle Manager “2.” Delivering on comprehensive identity and access management in the enterprise, ILM “2” changes the current state of the art of identity management. The availability of ILM “2” beta 3, announced today at Tech•Ed, brings powerful self-service capabilities for the end user through integration in Microsoft Office, rich administrative tools and enhanced automation for IT professionals, and .NET- and WS-*- based extensibility for developers.

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate. The availability of the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate, the data platform which provides high levels of scalability, reliability and security for business-critical applications, helps reduce time and cost of development and management of applications, and delivers actionable insights.

  • .NET Configuration Service 2.0. .NET Configuration Service 2.0, a freely downloadable and reusable set of code libraries, is available to help develop new composite application services across both .NET and Java. As part of Muglia’s keynote address, a demo of the Configuration Service showed how a composite application, running across Windows-, IBM WebSphere- and Apache-distributed components, could be dynamically virtualized against on-premises, physical resources and across the cloud.

  • Forefront Security for Office Communications Server Beta 1. The availability of the Forefront Security for Office Communications Server Beta 1 helps provide fast and effective protection against instant messaging-based malware by including multiple scanning engines and helps reduce corporate liability by blocking instant messages containing inappropriate content.

  • Forefront Client Security. Forefront Client Security now supports Windows Server 2008, including integration for Microsoft Network Access Protection, providing health remediation over network access and maintaining compliance.

“For Dow Corning, which has more than 4,000 patents globally, protecting our intellectual property while enabling global collaboration is business imperative No. 1,” said Mark Gandy, enterprise architect, Dow Corning Corp. “In order to achieve our business goals we turned to Microsoft’s Infrastructure Optimization models and their vision for Dynamic IT. With this guidance we were able to design a clear road map for our IT infrastructure that will, eventually, help deliver the foundation for secure collaboration to expand globally into any geography — which means our infrastructure becomes an even more invaluable strategic asset to the company.”

More information on today’s news and the event can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/teched/default.mspx.

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