Microsoft is all about the app at MMS

Day one of the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2012 is now over and feedback from attendees is that Microsoft has impressed them with the new System Center 2012 product range, as well as Windows Server 2012.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that you don’t really appreciate until later on in the day, and for me, it was sitting down during the lunch time break and processing some of the other key points from this morning’s keynote.

It is now clear that Microsoft is stepping up its focus from the virtualisation layer to being all about the app; it has been a theme throughout the entire day that System Center 2012 is about managing applications and giving people the ability to manage multiple hypervisors. Microsoft seems to be embracing other vendors’ products and building tools to manage all of them from a single view.

Microsoft also announced some other smaller areas that, on reflection, are also exciting and interesting. These are:

• Microsoft now has a new MCSE certification around the Private Cloud. This will focus in on the entire Private Cloud story, not just one product. A few of the Kiwis in attendance have decided to sit the beta version of this exam whilst they are here.

• One of the end demonstrations was very short (30 seconds) but also very interesting, Microsoft demonstrating how they have simplified their system down so that organisations can deploy a private cloud in only 30 seconds. Whilst the sceptics may yell out ‘smoke and mirrors’, Microsoft confirmed that you can do this in that time–which is just amazing.

• Every attendee has been given a private cloud on a stick. This is a 16GB USB key that has everything you need to build a private cloud (from scratch) and experience the power of System Center 2012. Attendees need to follow a setup wizard and answer a series of questions; System Center 2012 works is magic in the background, and creates a Private Cloud evaluation environment.

Like any event of this size there is of course a large marketplace. Hosted in the Venetian Expo arena, MMS 2012 has one of the biggest marketplaces that I have ever seen. There is a constant flow of people through the vast expo arena and everyone in the industry is there, from the key hardware vendors like Dell and HP to independent software development houses.

Tomorrow will see the day two keynote take place, and I am expecting to hear what Microsoft’s strategy is in relation to the desktop space.

The Kiwis were in full flight throughout day two with the likes of expat Adam Hall speaking alongside the team from Intergen. Intergen created the amazing demos for the day one keynote so they will spend some time explaining how they pulled it all together. It doesn’t end there either; Michael Frank from Provoke will be up on stage on day three discussing how to build SharePoint as a private cloud workload. Overall the kiwi influence is being well and truly felt throughout MMS 2012.

Adam Hall will be the keynote speaker at the Microsoft New Zealand’s System Center 2012 launch event in May, along with Intergen who will be presenting one of the technical tracks - you can go here to register.

To find out more about MMS and other key Windows Server 2012 information follow me on on twitter @bradbor.

This is a second in a series of blogs from Microsoft New Zealand’s Bradley Borrows, who is in Las Vegas attending the Microsoft Management Summit. Keep an eye out for more over the next few days. Image source here.