[Microsoft Solution Accelerators] Two new Beta Programs for System Center Products

The Solution Accelerators team has started two new beta programs focused on tools, automation, and knowledge for System Center products.

One program will provide System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) service templates and a SCVMM add-in to help you discover them.

The other program will provide datacenter automation for private clouds using System Center Orchestrator. Datacenter automation for System Center Orchestrator enables you to automate operations of private cloud workloads such as SharePoint and Windows Server.


Service Templates Explorer

The System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) Service Templates Explorer enables you to search for and download service templates that are published by Microsoft. The Service Templates Explorer is an add-in the runs within the SCVMM console. It is simple to install and use.

The first release of the Service Templates Explorer will make these service templates available for you to download and use:

• Windows Server 2012 - Domain Controller
• Windows Server 2012 - DNS
• Windows Server 2012 - DHCP
• Windows Server 2012 - IIS
• Window Server 2012 - File Server
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 - Domain Controller
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 - DNS
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 - DHCP
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 - IIS
• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 - File Server

These service templates are tested and supported by Microsoft. They provide you with a simple and quick way to deploy Windows Server virtual machines with key roles enabled. In the future, more service templates will be published. Some of these new service templates will provide you with private cloud application deployment capabilities.


Datacenter Automation

The datacenter automation for the cloud enables you to automate operations of private cloud workloads such as SharePoint and Windows Server.


The first release of the datacenter automation make following available for you to download and use:
Orchestrator Runbooks for quick SharePoint farm back-up and recovery scenario
Easily pluggable PowerShell 3.0 workflows for SharePoint basic daily, weekly and monthly operations automation. For example:

• Back up a Web application
• Back up a service application
• Trace logs
• Checking Disk Space, CPU and RAM
• Sharepoint WMI scan for perf/alerts
• Scan for missing patches / WMI

These automations are tested and supported by Microsoft.