System Center Configuration Manager

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is used to deploy operating systems, applications, hot fixes, and other software to clients and servers. It can be used to manage systems such as Windows Server, Mac OS, Linux, and Unix. Also, mobile devices running Windows Phone, Symbian, iOS, and Android can be managed. However, an additional subscription to Windows Intune is preferred for this, since SCCM out of the box only supports older mobile operating systems, such as Windows Mobile 6.1 and Nokia Symbian.

SCCM 2012 SP1 allows us to create a cloud distribution point in Microsoft Azure. A distribution point is a library that contains applications, updates, and more that are ready for deployment to clients managed by SCCM. The advantage of a distribution point in Azure is that it is highly available and reachable from locations all over the globe with just an Internet connection. Data is encrypted before it is transferred to the distribution point.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) has many features. It can be used to deploy physical servers and virtual machines. In this book, we concentrate on the features of System Center that enable a hybrid cloud.

One of the most important features of SCVMM for multitenant clouds is network virtualization. Basically, this enables the use of IP subnets used by virtual machines, which are totally invisible to the IP-network used by Hyper-V hosts switches and other physical components. Network virtualization is useful for service providers. Two tenants who use the same IP subnets can be hosted in the same infrastructure. It also allows us to move virtual machines between infrastructures that are using different IP-subnets without changes in the IP configuration of the virtual machine.

So, for example, virtual machines can be moved (offline or soon via online Live migration) to a service provider or to Microsoft Azure without adjustment to IP configuration, DNS, and so on.

The best analogy is something we are all used to: when we travel abroad, we can still be contacted on our mobile phone using the same telephone number.

System Center Service Manager

System Center Service Manager (SCSM) allows organizations to manage incidents and problems. It is compliant with Microsoft Operations Framework and ITIL. It provides built-in processes for incident and problem resolution, change control, and asset lifecycle management. Service Manager has a self-service portal that enables end users to report incidents and perform some tasks themselves, for example, resetting passwords.

System Center Orchestrator

System Center Orchestrator (SCO) is an automation tool. Using drag-and-drop, administrators can create runbooks to automate tasks like deploying servers, creating user accounts, and so on. SCO can be connected to many System Center components to automate tasks. For example, it can receive status information from Operations Manager and use that information to instruct SCVMM to deploy additional virtual servers.

System Center Operations Manager

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), often referred to as Ops Manager, is a monitoring and reporting tool. Using management packs that contain knowledge about applications or operating systems, SCOM reports on the status and condition of several infrastructure components.

System Center App Controller

App Controller is a cloud management portal. It allows administrators and end users to manage private and public clouds. A private cloud is a set of resources abstracted by SCVMM. A public cloud is a set of resources provided by Microsoft Azure or by a service provider. The service provider needs to have the Service Provider Foundation software running. This is a special component of the System Center suite.

In the next chapters, you will learn more about App Controller and how to connect to Microsoft Azure and service providers.

System Center Data Protection Manager

Data Protection Manager completes the datacenter management suite as the backup tool of choice for Microsoft workloads. Through use of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) it provides regular snapshots or full backups of Hyper-V hosts, virtual machines, or SQL/mail databases.

Windows Azure Pack

Microsoft Cloud OS is, as explained earlier, a vision of Microsoft on how to deliver services in a hybrid cloud as seamless as possible. Services can run on-premises, in Microsoft Azure, or in datacenters operated by service providers.

Microsoft offers software that enables service providers to offer Azure-like services in their datacenter. Windows Azure Pack runs on top of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and System Center 2012 R2.

It offers four services:

Azure Pack has an Application Programming Interface (API), so customers can use scripting to perform all kind of management tasks, just as they are used to for Microsoft Azure. For manual management, a self-service portal is available. The user interface of Azure Pack looks similar to the Azure Management Portal.

In contrary to Microsoft Azure, Azure Pack makes it possible to connect to consoles of virtual machines without the need of RDP or network connectivity of the virtual machine. Windows Azure Pack Console Connect works the same way as VMConnect from the Hyper-V Manager console.

Microsoft StorSimple

StorSimple is a stranger in our midst, as this is the only component of the Cloud OS vision that is delivered as hardware. StorSimple highly integrates with cloud-based storage. It can use Microsoft Azure Storage storage services as a cost-effective storage tier.

I have never met a customer who has full control over the growth of data. Each organization is facing growth in the amount of data and the management of that data. End users believe data capacity is unlimited, while the IT management does not have insight if data is really useful or could be deleted.

The shortcut solution to the growing need for storage is simply to add storage. However, the cost of buying and managing storage is expensive. Most data needs a backup as well, which adds to the cost of backup infrastructure.

A common solution to reduce costs on storage is to archive data. About 80 percent of data is hardly ever accessed, so it can easily be moved to another type of storage.

Microsoft offers a complete solution with the StorSimple appliance. When using StorSimple, virtual machines or physical servers are connected to volumes presented by the StorSimple appliance that is deployed on-premises. The appliance offers two tiers of storage: SSD and SATA. SSD offers the best storage performance, while SATA offers good performance and is cheaper than SSD. The third tier is cloud-based storage. The appliance does auto-tiering such that frequently requested data is located on the fastest tier, while data that is rarely accessed is automatically moved to the cloud storage.

StorSimple is a hardware appliance. Depending on the required capacity, one or more appliances are purchased and connected to the network. If more storage capacity is needed, additional appliances need to be purchased.

It has features such as compression, deduplication, and encryption. As data is kept outside the datacenter, StorSimple can replace traditional tape in certain use cases. Data sent to the cloud is encrypted for security reasons. We know since the PRISM scandal around June 2013 that data could be watched by the NSA without the knowledge of the customer of a cloud provider.

Besides archiving and extension of storage capacity, StorSimple can also be used for disaster recovery purposes. Snapshots can be replicated to Microsoft Azure. When a disaster hits the on-premises datacenter, data can be retrieved from the cloud storage in an alternate datacenter. Instead of having to copy all the data back to the alternate datacenter, initially only the data requested by users is restored.

In a later chapter, you will learn how to use the StorSimple appliance.