SCOM upcoming versions

Question

Hi All,

How long will be SCOM supported? Will Microsoft release new versions after SCOM 2022 or is there any plans to replace SCOM by other monitoring options in future?

Thanks in advance
Regards
Fadil CK

Answer 1

Hi Fadil,

this can be officially answered only by Microsoft, so I can give you some facts. For those I will use screenshot from the webinar of Bob Cornelissen (@Bob Cornelissen ):

You can watch the whoole webinar of Bob here (It is super interesting and also very, very helpful):

Coffee Break: SCOM 2022 Migration
https://scomathon.com/coffee-break-scom-2022-migration/

• SCOM 2019 will have Mainstream Support until 2024 and Extended Support until 2029
• SCOM 2022 will have Mainstream Support until 2027 and Extended Support until 2032

This is to the support lifecycle. So whatever SCOM Version do you have you can add +5 Years for the Mainstream Support and additional 5 Years for the Extended Support.
So much to the current versions and their support lifecycle.
Now to your second question "Will Microsoft release new versions after SCOM 2022 or is there any plans to replace SCOM by other monitoring options in future?"

I will break it in two:

"Will Microsoft release new versions after SCOM 2022"
and
"is there any plans to replace SCOM by other monitoring options in future?"

To the first one, here is my personal opinion (keep in mind that Microsoft have not stated anything officially):
I think considering the unofficial information that Microsoft will keep developing SCOM as it is. As you know the System Center versions are always aligned with the release of each new Windows Server Version. this was the case with Windows Server 2016 (SCOM 2016), then Windows Server 2019 (SCOM 2019) and now Windows Server 2022 (SCOM 2022). So considering the fact that there will be future Windows Server version, I would expect that there should be also Management Tools for those versions - like SCOM, VMM, SCOrch etc.
Another fact that would only confirm this is that the SCOM Product Group is highly interested in taking optimization suggestions and feedback regarding SCOM. Nobody would do this if the product is dead imho. So, let's hope and stay tuned for the new versions.

The second one - "is there any plans to replace SCOM by other monitoring options in future?"
Microsoft already dropped a hint that they will be a product, which should run in Azure, will be managed by Microsoft and aims to help customers retain their investments in SCOM Management Packs. So, we could expect a product in near future, which will be very similar to SCOM, but will run in the cloud and will be.
There is no other information about plans, roadmaps etc.

So at the end you will have SCOM for your on-prem System monitoring and another product, which you can installl in Azure, but still use your existing Management Packs from SCOM. Actually not bad at all.

I hope I could help you out with that!

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you)
Regards
Stoyan Chalakov

Answer 2

That is basically it. so existing versions have a support lifecycle which can be found on Microsoft documentation site (yes, I know a million pages). SO I did that for you. See picture from my webinar.

There is no indication that the product is retired. SO update rollups of 2022 version are being made (and 2019 version too). I am also expecting that a new Windows server version will come out in future.. when, we dont know. what name, we dont know. But it is likely there must be a full management solution for also those machines. For now, that is System Center. The Microsoft product group is active and taking feedback and creating updates and so on.

Replacing is not the discussion really. We have SCOM for on-prem (but also hybrid and cloud even), we have a version of SCOM running in the cloud coming, which is still SCOM. Meant also for on-prem and cloud agents. And there is obviously Azure Monitor with Log Analytics behind it for monitoring of cloud based machines and entities, which can also be used to put on-prem data in, either direct or through Azure Arc.
I do not see it as a full replacement at this moment. Its different. It takes more work to achieve the same thing if you want to go deep enough. For the generic and easy stuff (he I want to see the CPU....) of course anything will do and is very easy to achieve. So multiple options and methods here. And some work better together in a hybrid scenario. I did a webinar about that a 2 years ago visible here https://topqore.com/webinars/monitoring-in-a-hybrid-world/ and here https://topqore.com/webinars/wmug-nl-tuesdays-monitoring-in-a-hybrid-world/ for example.
Since then Arc is becoming better and giving more options for general management of on-prem servers with cloud tooling, including helping with the monitoring and windows updates and some automation and tags and such.

Hope it helps!