Microsoft working on 'Concero' cloud-management portal

Microsoft is building a new management tool, code-named "Concero," that will allow customers to oversee both on-premises and cloud-based services.

Microsoft is planning to show off the new member of its System Center product line at the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2011 conference in March. There is a mention of Concero on the MMS Web site agenda, that explains the coming product this way:

"The move to cloud based deployment of services will result in deployments which are partly on private on-premise clouds based on VMM and Hyper-V and partly on Windows Azure. In this hybrid world, it is imperative to have a management tool that allows customers to deploy and manage their services across these environments. System Center codename “Concero” is a self-service portal targeted at this customer base."

The Concero tool will allow customers to manage both on-premises Services running on Hyper-V hypervisor and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (a new version of which is due in the latter half of 2011), and off-premises Services running on Windows Azure and Windows Azure Appliances. Concero will be built on Silverlight, to enable an "access anywhere" experience, according to information on Microsoft's Web site.

I also found a Microsoft job listing mentioning Concero and caling the Concero team key to Microsoft's effort to compete with rival VMware.

"Together with our sister teams in System Center and Azure we will deliver a world class experience that will shift customers from VM Ware (sic) to Microsoft," said the job posting.

I asked Microsoft officials when the company plans to field a beta of Concero and when the final version is slated to be released. No word back so far. Microsoft officials said they have no information to share at this time regarding Concero.

Concero, in Latin, means "connect" or "join in conflict." Hmmm.... Does that say something about the company's view on interconnecting public and private clouds...?