We’re releasing a new System Center product that hasn’t gotten much press yet but I think folks should really pay attention because it’s pretty interesting for folks looking for service orchestration across private & public cloud technologies.
It’s called System Center App Controller.
App Controller automates the provisioning of services in both the private cloud & public cloud. It rises to the “service level” instead of the “VM level” so in that sense it is sort of an evolutionary step beyond System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) – although, it does automate SCVMM for the purposes of provisioning what’s necessary for the services requests by users.
It is, at the very minimum, a front end to both Virtual Machine Manager (for private clouds) and Windows Azure (for public clouds) that allows for the profiling and deployment of applications/services for the purpose of deployment or scaling. It presents “what resources are available” and “what services templates are available”.
- It does this by providing a self-service portal for both maintaining service templates & requesting service deployments.
- It allows application owners to define/maintain the requirements to incrementally scale their applications.
- It allows operations managers to automate service provisioning on both public & private cloud environments.
Here are some links to more information about the product:
- DOWNLOAD BETA:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh505660.aspx?ocid=otc-f-corp-jtc-DPR&wt.mc_id=TEC_103_1_33 - System Center “Nexus” Blog write up: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2011/07/15/take-a-look-at-what-is-coming-with-app-controller.aspx
- Video Walkthrough: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/Video/hh533278
- PowerPoint: http://download.microsoft.com/documents/uk/enterprise/The-Future-of-Private-and-Public-Cloud-Management-with-System-Center-App-Controller-2012.pptx
- Discussion forum: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/appcontroller/threads
kurtsh
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 