Microsoft has detailed plans to provide greater cross-platform support in its datacentre management tools, a move that looks set to benefit enterprise firms struggling with a diverse environment of operating systems and software.

At the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) 2008, the software giant unveiled a public beta of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Cross Platform Extensions, which adds support for open standards and the ability to manage Linux servers. Also out in beta is System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which enables firms to manage virtual infrastructure based on VMware's ESX Server as well as Microsoft's own technology.

Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft's Server Business, said the firm was taking its knowledge of the Windows environment and expanding it to address heterogeneous management needs, enabling businesses to drive greater efficiency and responsiveness.

The extensions to System Center Operations Manager include support for Web Services for Management (WS-Man) and what Microsoft terms "foundational cross-platform support" for HP-UX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Sun's Solaris and Suse Linux. Microsoft partners will be able to extend this level of support with management packs, according to the firm.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 enables customers to deploy and configure virtual machines running under Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 or VMware ESX Server. It also integrates with System Center Operations Manager to provide a single console for both physical and virtual servers, Microsoft said.

Hyper-V, which is still currently in beta, is now expected to ship earlier than the 180-day timeframe that Microsoft set itself at the Windows Server 2008 launch in February.

A third beta release, System Center Operations Manager 2007 Connectors, enables Microsoft's suite to link with other management tools such as HP OpenView and IBM's Tivoli Enterprise Console.