Microsoft will pave the way for a major push into systems management next week at a conference in San Diego.

The  Microsoft Management Summit, which begins on 26 March, will be the software giant’s launch party for a wave of products under the System Centre brand.

Among products being showcased will be Operations Manager 2007 and mid-market product Essentials 2007, both of which are scheduled to become available in the first half of this year. Also being previewed are Configuration Manager 2007(formerly Systems Management Server, or SMS), Virtual Machine Manager and  Data Protection Manager 2, which adds support for tape backup to the current disk-to-disk capability.

Microsoft believes that web services and the rise of configuration management databases (CMDBs) in identifying enterprise-wide assets are helping its chances of competing with cross-platform systems management suites such as IBM Tivoli, CA Unicenter and HP OpenView.

Microsoft UK product manager for management and virtualisation Neil Sanderson said that even when used in tandem with a larger systems management suite, System Centre tools offered savings.

“Because you’re not needing to use a different management toolset to control Microsoft software, that’s a major plus,” Sanderson said. “Plus, we have agreements with people like Novell and Xen.”