Microsoft Virtualization Secrets

Understanding the Capabilities Needed to Offer a True Private Cloud

At this point, you’re probably thinking that everything about the private cloud sounds great but wondering how you actually realize and implement it. I want to be clear that there is no single product called “Private Cloud”; you create a private cloud offering within your organization using Microsoft products and guidance based on your requirements.

A Brief Introduction to System Center 2012

The Microsoft private cloud solution encompasses Windows Server, Hyper-V, and System Center 2012. System Center 2012 consists of seven separate major components, as shown in Figure 10-4, and it also includes Endpoint Protection (anti-virus), which was previously part of the Forefront suite, and a new Unified Installer that enables fast deployments of the entire System Center 2012 product for testing proof-of-concept environments (but not production).

Figure 10-4: An overview of System Center 2012’s integrated management capabilities

For readers unfamiliar with System Center, let me take you on a 10-cent tour; I go into more detail about the App Controller and Service Manager components toward the end of this chapter. Previously, System Center was a family of products that could be purchased individually or as a suite—you could buy System Center Configuration Manager, you could buy System Center Virtual Machine Manager, and ...