Good News for Managed Service Providers Coming in System Center

Monitoring customer environments in MOM 2005 and delivering a clear sense of value to the customer is not a simple task, given issues with the Active Directory management pack in multiple AD forest scenarios and the lack of segmentation in MOM 2005 Reporting out-of-the-box (although it can be addressed through subscriptions) along with various other limitations. The bottom line is that the product just was not designed for use in service provider scenarios. Operations Manager 2007 and it's sister product, System Center Essentials 2007 (SCE), have tiering and a gateway role that can be employed by service providers to monitor multiple client environments. There is a conceptual document available that outlines possible scenarios. However, there were not any clear service-provider scenarios defined in the SCE beta documentation. The documentation I have seen points to a hybrid solution incorporating Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007 and System Center Essentials (SCE) in a hybrid, tiered solution. The solution is reported to address several key factors in a successful managed service deployment, including: Segmentation of console and reporting functionality on a per-customer basis Resource-tracking Reporting of customer issues and time spent in resolution. The ability to perform remote troubleshooting and management (utilizing Tasks, RDP/Remote Assitance presumably) The simple setup and configuration process, given the 10-click philosophy behind SCE (although I would have liked to have chosen WHERE the database was installed). A secure configuration for communication across the internet (this is a slam dunk, given the encrypted, single port communication of Ops Manager agent and Management Server) Software deployment and patch management via the SMS and WSUS functionality integrated into SCE 2007. So until we get a bit closer to RTM, visit the following resources at microsoft.com for more information on managed service provider scenarios in System Center: Partner Solution for Remote IT Managed Services Homepage: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sce/sceremoteit.mspx   Flash Demo of Service Provider Solution (100,000 ft flyover) http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sce/demo/partner/index.html   and be sure to sign up for the Managed Services Solutions beta ...I signed  up 3 months ago and haven't seen a thing. https://connect.microsoft.com/programdetails.aspx?ProgramDetailsID=819