Microsoft launches new Operations Management Suite security tools out of preview

Microsoft today is announcing that new security features inside the Operations Management Suite — a cloud service for managing public cloud and private cloud infrastructure that includes backup, site recovery, and log analytics capability — are now generally available following a preview.

Once organizations have started using the Operations Management Suite — which is now available with subscription pricing and as an add-on to Microsoft’s System Center software — and enabled its Security and Audit features, it’s possible to monitor activity, run queries, and set policies centrally.

“Highlights include advanced threat detection and the Threat Intelligence dashboard, which lets you visualize attacks using the same data we use in Azure,” Microsoft director of program management Jeremy Winter wrote in a blog post. “For customers using Advanced Threat Analytics in Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS), you can now view that information in OMS, giving you a single view of security for IT operations. The new Security Configuration Baseline Assessment identifies vulnerable OS configurations that could be exploited by an attacker.”

Antimalware assessment functionality is also new, and an “Advanced detection engine” that picks up on certain types of anomalies, like unusual processes running on virtual machines, is now available in preview.

Operations Management Suite lets customers manage infrastructure on public clouds other than Microsoft Azure, which makes sense given that, say, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is more popular than Azure, and customers may want to run applications in both Azure and AWS. Simultaneously Microsoft has long served software for deployment in on-premises data centers, and so what you end up with is something spanning that infrastructure, too. AWS has started to embrace hybrid cloud deployment models but Microsoft is naturally further along in that area.

“With OMS Security we bring the security analytics that are built into Azure Security Center to hybrid cloud environments, giving you the capabilities you need to handle today’s evolving security threats,” Winter wrote.

Update at 9:36 a.m. Pacific: Added information about what’s new.