Microsoft to license EMC network tools

Future versions of Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager will include licensed technology from the storage giant EMC, the companies announced on Tuesday.

In "a network management technology licensing agreement and a broader technology collaboration", Microsoft will license EMC's Smarts network-discovery and health-monitoring technology, and EMC will develop "value-added network management and root-cause analysis management packs to be used in conjunction with both current and future versions of System Center Operations Manager".

The first release in this collaboration is EMC's Smarts Connector for System Center Operations Manager 2007, which was itself announced on Tuesday. Future versions of System Center Operations Manager will have the technology integrated.

The two companies are also apparently working on a "new cross-domain behavioural model, within the context of Operations Manager, that will help customers pinpoint the root cause of service-affecting problems", according to Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president of server and tools business, and Howard Elias, executive vice president of the global services for EMC.