Cloud management: MS takes on VMware

data centre, but also for future workloads in the on-premises cloud and Windows Azure public cloud, Information Week writes.

In doing so, it's saying the next version, system centre 2012, due by the end of the first half of this year, will challenge top systems management vendors IBM, HP, BMC Software and CA Technologies. It will be a prospective, hybrid cloud system manager, capable of moving virtual machines from the data centre to Azure and back again.

Even more than the Big Four, Microsoft is lining up to butt heads with VMware, which is mounting its own challenge in the systems management space. VMware launched vCentre Operations last March, with monitoring, configuration management and capacity management. Both Microsoft and VMware agree that virtual machine management is the key to future data centre operations and workload management in the cloud. In the past, Microsoft has had a stronger hand in physical Windows Server management.

Companies use cloud computing to store and run programs via the Internet. While the approach spares them from having to store data locally, many businesses want to run them in-house for better control; hence, the appeal of private clouds, Bloomberg says.

Though VMware has an edge in this area, Microsoft should pose a stronger challenge this year, said Al Gillen, an analyst at Framingham, Massachusetts-based research firm IDC.

“The stage is being set for a very brutal competition between Microsoft and VMware,” he said. “You are going to see a lot of focus around price. Until now, VMware's functionality has been so much better that they haven't had to compete on price. That's going to change.”