For the system center tools to accurately watch Web services and business processes, the application's developers need to be aware of the need when they're building the software. Developers have to build in the metadata to describe the relationship between parts, explained Smith. As they bring the application to production, development can deliver a management pack that tells the system how to judge the application's health. "Those pieces intuitively fall into place," said Smith.

This might sound like more work for developers. But, Smith pointed out, they have to worry about it in any case. "If there's a subtle problem in production, it ends up back on the developers' desks anyway," he said. "They're helping themselves to accurately identify and diagnose problems. [With the new system,] they don't have to be as involved in production systems that aren't working."

And, Smith claimed, it's not any more onerous than building unit tests. Building a management pack that defines the health of the system, using Visual Studio Team System (Clear Channel is a .NET shop) doesn't require programmers to learn a whole new language or to acquire any new concepts. "It's easy to say, 'You know this code; how would you tell if it's working correctly?'" Smith said. The developers put in the hooks to expose that measurement or metric to the outside world. It's mostly an issue of awareness, like making a good developer aware of error trapping, he said.

One positive effect of the systems center technology adoption and its integration with Visual Studio tools, said Microsoft's Kelly, is that it lets the software take on the burden of IT rather than requiring individuals to make all the decisions. Doing so, he said, "Moves individuals from feeling like they're a cost center (a break/fix department) into a strategic asset."

So far, this sounds like a technology story. But the real win has been in corporate culture—or perhaps corporate attention to soft skills has enabled the technology to be used effectively.