Bottom Line
Microsoft is continuing to tie additional capabilities and
services to the benefits of a Software Assurance subscription. A large number of changes in Software Assurance
(and Microsoft’s licensing as a whole) will continue to be made in the upcoming
months as a result of their efforts to realign their licensing to deal with
major shifts in the IT world such as virtualization, cloud computing, and the
“consumerization of IT”. Additionally,
this trend will be fueled throughout this year and into next year as Microsoft
continues to release many new product versions and services. Customers who remain vigilant to Microsoft
(and Microsoft Miner) during the upcoming changes could see many benefits. One such example of this change, and the
subject of the following blog, is the recent introduction of Microsoft’s System
Center Advisor, as a Software Assurance benefit on designated server products.
Background
Last week’s blog was an example of a Microsoft trend that is
tying virtualization to Software Assurance (SA) by including some of those
rights as an SA benefit. This blog provides
an example of Microsoft’s movement toward adding cloud services to their
existing SA benefits. As an example, recently Microsoft introduced an
SA benefit called System Center Advisor.
System Center Advisor is a cloud based service that alerts corporate
server administrators of patching or configuration issues that may exist within
their server farm. At this time, the System Center Advisor
benefit is being extended to the Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server,
and Sharepoint Servers products that are covered by SA. Though System Center Advisor was introduced
as an SA benefit in October of 2011, it was not until January of 2012 that the
first products, Windows Server and SQL Server editions, actually became available
as part of this benefit. In April, the
Exchange Server and Sharepoint Server editions were added to the list of
products covered by this benefit.
How does System Center Advisor Work?
System Center Advisor works by connecting the customer’s
Microsoft supported servers to the Microsoft Support Center Database. The service automates the Microsoft Customer
Support problem resolution scripts and proactively provides their customers
with solutions before an issue results in system downtime. An example of the types of alerts a customer
proactively receives would be a notification of applicable Hotfixes or Service
packs that need installed. These types
of issues are typically not resolved, much less looked for, until a customer’s
system has a failure. It is only after a
system failure that the person responsible for the server will start looking
for issues such as these. This service
should not be considered a replacement for a live system monitoring solution,
for example, the Microsoft System Center Solution. Rather, this is service that is able to work
in concert with the System Center Operations Manager.
The advantages of System Center Advisor as an SA benefit
By providing cloud services as an SA benefit, Microsoft is introducing
their customers to the advantages of their cloud service while further enticing
the customer to not only continue to use the underlying SA-covered product, but
also the SA subscription itself.
Microsoft is also opening the door to potentially provide upgraded
products or service offerings to the customer in the future. From an operational standpoint, the customer
benefits from this service by eliminating errors before they result in system
degradation or downtime. Microsoft on the
other hand benefits because they are reducing the number of incoming service
calls to their support center. Given the
mutual benefit experience by both Microsoft and their customers, I would expect
Microsoft to continue to add other server products which are covered by this SA
benefit.
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