Microsoft delivers first beta of reworked Opalis datacenter management tool

Microsoft made available for download on June 17 a first public beta of its System Center Orchestrator datacenter management product.

Orchestrator is the new Microsoft branding for the Opalis products/technologies that Microsoft acquired in December 2009 when it bought Opalis. Opalis was a privately held workflow automation vendor that automates IT processes within datacenters.

System Center Orchestrator is one of at least nine new System Center 2012 management products that Microsoft is delivering this calendar year.

Microsoft execs told TechEd 2011 attendees to expect a beta of System Center Orchestrator in the first half of 2011, with the final version due out before year-end. (Click on the chart above to enlarge.)

At TechEd, Microsoft execs also noted that the Orchestra beta would indicate the official move of the Opalis codebase to Microsoft. "This has many positive benefits, including a removal of the licensing complexity around the ‘grant’ of Opalis, greater alignment to the Microsoft Common Engineering Criteria and also things like the Support Lifecycle, Senior Technical Product Manager Adam Hall blogged back in May.

The System Center Orchestrator is a process-automation tool for datacenters. The Beta product "provides the capability of automation of workflows (Runbooks) across other System Center and third-party products," according to the download information. The beta and final versions of Orchestrator will work on Windows Server 2008 R2 and will support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 clients.