What is Microsoft announcing about Application Center today?
Per our commitment to Application Center Customers, we are providing an update to the status and progress on the Application Center Roadmap.

Does this mean the final Roadmap for Application Center has been determined?
We have done a significant amount of scenario research to understand both how customers are using Application Center, and the capabilities available in other Microsoft® products and components that can deliver on the Application Center scenarios. This functionality will be delivered through a combination of the System Center family of products and the core Windows® Application Server platform.

What is the timeframe for delivering this functionality?
The Application Center capabilities will be delivered across multiple System Center products and releases. For core monitoring, most key Application Center monitoring scenarios will be covered by System Center Operations Manager 2007. For application deployment needs, some of these scenarios will be available to you today in Systems Management Server 2003 or in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (Q3 CY 2007). Other more advanced scenarios will be available in the next wave of System Center products.

Why is it taking so long?
Application Center was originally written to fill a need for deployment and clustering tools for web applications, and that remains a valid need today. However, as web infrastructure grows and matures, and more of the specialized functionality is incorporated in the Windows infrastructure and management tools, the need for a separate tool has lessened. In addition, with the Dynamic Systems Initiative and the System Center product strategy, we have embarked on a road where some of the advanced functionality for supporting the Application Center scenarios will be delivered in future Windows Server™ products, while the System Center offerings will provide the dynamic provisioning and management capabilities provided by Application Center today. We believe that rather than providing tools with divergent architectures for providing the same functionality across web and other infrastructure management tasks, the right approach is to guide customers to a single architecture rather than maintaining a parallel course.

Don’t System Center products already deliver some of the monitoring, update and deployment capabilities?
Yes, however these products in their current form address a subset of the Application Center functions and scenarios. In the case of Systems Management Server (SMS) or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), they address many of the Application Center scenarios, but require you to package your application to be delivered by SMS/SCCM. As such, we recommend Application Center customers evaluate their usage scenarios for Application Center, and plan to migrate to the System Center products as the scenarios are delivered over time.

How will we know which scenarios are being delivered through alternate products?
We have published a white paper entitled Managing .NET Web Applications with System Center. The white paper provides scenario based prescriptive guidance for moving current Application Center 2000 web applications to the relevant System Center products, and to leverage the built-in manageability of Windows Server 2003. This guidance aims to provide an end-to-end solution for managing .NET web applications with today shipping technologies. While there are a limited set of Application Center features that do not have a direct replacement many of these will be added to future versions of System Center products. A complete comparison of features included in the System Center products versus those provided by Application Center may be found in the white paper.

What happens in the meantime – isn’t Application Center coming to the end of its support lifecycle?
Mainstream Support for Application Center ended on July 11, 2006, and Extended Support will be available until July 12, 2011. Extended support is now being offered for at no charge to all Application Center customers.

Are there any restrictions associated with Application Center scenarios and platform support going forward?
Windows Server “Longhorn” or 64-bit support will not be available for Application Center, the recommendation is to continue running Application Center on existing platforms and only migrate to the Windows Server™ “Longhorn” and System-Center-based solutions as and when support for the individual scenarios are available.

If I am an existing Application Center customer, how should I proceed in migrating off Application Center?
Existing Application Center (AC) customers should reference the whitepaper entitled Managing .NET Web Applications with System Center to help determine whether it makes sense for them to migrate to Systems Management Server (SMS), Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), or other System Center products. To assist existing Application Center customers with active Software Assurance as of June 30, 2006 in acquiring the SMS and MOM licenses they may need, we have made a license grant available. The grant provides 1 SMS Server and 1 MOM Server for each eligible AC customer, as well as 1 SMS CML and 1 MOM Enterprise OML for each AC per proc license. More details on the license grant can be found on the Product List.

Can existing customers purchase additional Application Center licenses?
Application Center will no longer be available for purchase starting October 1, 2006. Customers interested in the type of management functionality provided by Application Center should evaluate Systems Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM). Customers using Application Center functionality not replaced by SMS and MOM should discuss options with their Account Representative or Microsoft Support.

Can new customers purchase Application Center licenses?
Application Center will no longer be available for purchase starting October 1, 2006. Customers interested in the type of management functionality provided by Application Center should evaluate Systems Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM).