Microsoft has announced the release to manufacturing of System Center Configuration Manager 2007, the update to its Systems Management Server Windows management software.

The product is due to be available from Microsoft and its resellers in November and is the first major update to the systems management software product since SMS 2003 finally arrived in October 2003.

During the interim, the product has survived the abandonment of a planned merger with Microsoft Operations Manager, now known as Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, although not without a re-brand.

The new version is built on core Microsoft technologies such as Update, Active Directory, and of course Windows, and is designed to provide assistance to users in updating their desktop environments to Vista and their server environments to Windows Server 2008.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 is designed to automate assessment, migration, and deployment of Microsoft operating systems, as well as the deployment and installation of updates.

The new version is also designed to enable the management of both physical and virtual servers and integrates with Microsoft's forthcoming Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager, as well as the SoftGrid application virtualization technologies acquired with Softricity in May 2006.

Read the original at CBROnline, here.