Lab Management Released and Included with MSDN Subscriptions
This is some really exciting news for customers of Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010! Today, Microsoft has announced that customers who have purchased Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN or Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional with MSDN now receive the Lab Management capabilities for Team Foundation Server! That means no per-processor licensing fees for your physical host servers that will be hosting your virtual machines!
Earlier this year, I passed on Lab Management news that indicated that it would cost $1,599 per processor (retail.) Microsoft has listened to the feedback and has also made it a “feature” in the Visual Studio family instead of a completely separate product.
Microsoft has also announced an update to the Lab Management functionality in the different products to bring it to full RTM/RTW status. You’ll recall that when Visual Studio 2010 released earlier this year that the Lab Management features ended up still being released in a “Release Candidate” status. The product team has spent the last few months gathering feedback and include updates to improve performance throughout the product. The “patch” will be available later this month. I highly recommend updating to the latest version by installing the patch as soon as it becomes available.
When it is released, you will see the following “extra” installation media become available in your MSDN Subscriber Download listings:
- System Center Virtual Machine Manager* (SCVMM)
- Visual Studio 2010 Agents
*A grant of “limited use” rights for SCVMM are included. This means that you can only use SCVMM for your Visual Studio 2010 Lab Management test lab.
This is a great move for customers. Creating a virtual lab management can be an expensive endeavor for business. I recall visiting customers who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on competing products like VMWare Lab Manager. This is really bringing virtual lab management to everyone!
If you are curious about more information, see Brian Harry’s announcement.
Ed Blankenship
